Daylight
by Sabari
Summary: The light of Guf'yn is unlike that of any other planet. But the planet also harbors a dark secret. For Jonas, no mission is ever just routine.
1. Another Sunny Day

**Part 1: Past**

 _"You taught me the courage of stars before you left..."_

* * *

"What the Hell do you mean, you 'lost track of him'? Jonas was your responsibility, Major!"

Major Kofield broke eye contact with Colonel Jack O'Neill, looking shame-faced at the ground.

"And don't tell me he just up and wandered away!" O'Neill continued, dark eyes ablaze with barely contained fury, "Because I happen to know Jonas is not that stupid," here he paused thoughtfully, adding in a softer tone, "Usually."

Major Samantha Carter and Teal'c stood to either side and slightly behind the enraged Colonel, neither of them saying anything. O'Neill was plenty angry enough for all of them. Maybe he wasn't overly fond of Jonas, but the man _was_ on his team and O'Neill would fulfill his duty of doing everything in his power to make sure everyone on his team returned from missions alive and well.

Colonel O'Neill and the rest of SG-1 all felt that what happened to Daniel was their fault in some way. Someone should have been there with him. Not that they could have stopped him or done anything to help, but they still felt that -if even one of them had been there- maybe Daniel would still be with them. It was this, more than anything else, that had O'Neill so riled up now.

"You were supposed to take care of him!" O'Neill was finally winding down, "So what the Hell happened!?"

Major Kofield hesitated, clearly waiting to be sure that O'Neill was well and truly finished before he started trying to explain himself. Kofield had reported Jonas as missing just hours before, and the result had been the deployment of SG-1 and SG-3 to Guf'yn. O'Neill was clearly on the warpath, prepared to yell at and/or shoot anyone who got in his way until he found the missing member of his team.

"He reported in via radio this morning on schedule," Kofield said, "Everything seemed fine."

"How would you know!?" Major Carter snapped before O'Neill could, "You weren't even there!"

"Maybe not," Captain Reiner, Kofield's second, said, "But one of ours was."

O'Neill turned on Reiner then, "Well yours isn't the one who's missing, are they!?"

"Sir, with respect," Kofield said, drawing O'Neill's attention back to himself, "this is not our fault."

"I suppose it's Jonas' fault then?" Carter said, anger in her words.

"Like you said, Major Carter," Kofield replied in a flat voice, "I wasn't there."

"Maybe you should have been," O'Neill said.

"Or maybe it wouldn't have made a bit of difference either way," Reiner put in, evidently willing to meet SG-1 head on even if Kofield was not, "And maybe, _Colonel_ , you should withhold your judgment until you find out what really happened," a full twelve inches shorter than O'Neill, Reiner nevertheless looked right at him, ready to take this conflict to the mat if necessary.

"Me?" O'Neill exploded, " _You_ don't even know what happened!"

"Neither do you!" Reiner shouted right back.

"Captain Reiner!" Kofield broke in, "That's enough."

Still visibly bristling, Reiner nonetheless fell silent. Reiner wasn't normally temperamental, but one of the side effects of aspiring to be like SG-1 was loyalty to one's team mates. That loyalty often transcended rank, rule and regulation. Reiner was defending his leader. Even in his anger, O'Neill had to respect that. And too, Reiner was correct. He didn't know what had happened. Nobody did.

"Alright," O'Neill said, taking a calming breath, "Let's take it from the top, Major. What happened?"

"When we got here," Kofield said neutrally, "the first thing any of us noticed was... how strange this place is. How quiet. But if Quinn was rattled, he gave no sign of it. The way he looked around, you'd think he'd just walked into a candy store."

"Jonas loves experiencing new things," Carter remarked coolly.

"He's weird like that," O'Neill put in.

* * *

 _Guf'yn, Three Days Earlier,_ _0830hrs_

Jonas Quinn stood on the pedestal of the Stargate, for the moment reluctant to take the steps down. Each time he stepped through the Stargate, Jonas was struck anew by how very little of the universe he'd really seen, and how little he knew of it.

Beside him, Lt. Marshal of SG-7 was standing and staring around her. Despite the military ranking, Marshal was more of an analyst than a soldier. She had worked at the SGC for some time, but this was her first trip through the Stargate. She looked like a stunned gazelle, but Jonas wasn't sure if it was the trip through the Stargate itself or how things looked on the other side.

There was a circle surrounding the Stargate that was perfectly flat, cleared dirt. Just a few feet away, the MALP they'd sent through first sat at a slight angle to them, its camera pointed towards a small hill with ruins. On a zoomed in picture taken by the MALP's camera, Jonas had spotted some writings on those ruins that looked like Goa'uld symbols. That was why he was here.

Other than these features, there was only the uncannily straight rows of darkened trees. The trees stood with disturbing similarity, all exactly alike. The sameness of every tree bothered Jonas. Glancing at Marshal, he could tell that she was also uneasy, though she didn't seem sure why.

"You okay, Marshal?" Major Kofield inquired, glancing over his shoulder.

"It's very... blue," Marshal replied.

Jonas knew from her file that, normally, she would have launched into a headache-inducing explanation of how and why the properties of this planet's sun sapped the color from everything. In fact, the strange lighting was exactly what Marshal was here to study. It was the thing that had finally interested her enough to agree to 'Gate travel, something she had resisted for some time now.

But seeing the world reduced to blue, black and white on a monitor was one thing, actually being here was quite another, and it was clear Marshal hadn't fully prepared herself for that reality.

"It sure is that," Kofield acknowledged.

Major Kofield had headed up SG-7 for two years now, having been a member of the team since it had been rebuilt after the incident on Hanka in '97 killed the entire original team. The fact that he led a team that had once been completely destroyed did not appear to bother Kofield a great deal. Well, not as much as it seemed to bother him that Jonas had temporarily been assigned to it.

In fairness, this hadn't exactly been Jonas' idea either.

Major Carter had expressed interest in the celestial phenomenon, but SG-1 wasn't next up in the rotation. Colonel O'Neill had comforted her by saying that time off wasn't really so bad.

Jonas, meanwhile, had not minded that SG-1 had nothing scheduled for at least a week. He'd been so busy with the team lately that he hadn't been able to keep up with the Tau'ri's continued attempts to make the naquadria work for them in various ways. He'd fallen behind on the technical advancements of several projects he'd been following. It was all fascinating stuff, and he wouldn't have minded a little time to just take a breath and absorb all that had happened to him recently.

But Colonel O'Neill had volunteered Jonas for this mission, citing his skills as a linguist and the fact that SG-7 lacked just such an expert. This was far from the first time he'd been handed off to another team. Jonas knew he needed all the field experience he could get as fast as he could get it, but he was beginning to feel a bit like everyone was playing hot potato, with him as the potato.

He was tired of smiling at people who seemed to be mocking him. He was tired of being harassed by a bunch of military-types who couldn't translate their way out of a paper-bag yet somehow expected him to be able to completely study miles of ruins covered in symbols that seemed to belong to Ancient and Goa'uld dialects, yet didn't fully match either of those, and included markings that weren't covered even in the extensive notes of Dr. Daniel Jackson. He was tired of being left completely by himself for hours on end while the teams to which he'd been assigned hung out near the Stargate, killing time. But, most of all, he was tired of failing, which seemed to be the only thing he'd done since he arrived at the SGC.

The sound of Major Kofield's next orders drew him from his thoughts.

"Stick together. Nobody goes anywhere alone," Kofield looked especially hard at Jonas, who pretended not to notice, "SG-2 didn't come up with anything when they scouted here, but I think we can all agree that those trees didn't just grow like that naturally. What we don't know is who maintains them. For all we know, it could be somebody coming through the Stargate from off-world. Keep your guard up."

Jonas scuffed the toe of his boot against the dirt he was standing on. The same stuff surrounded the Stargate. It was less dirt than finely ground shale. Based off the report SG-2 had come back with, he knew it was fully impossible for the shale to have come here on its own. Someone had placed it, likely to prevent plant growth in the area surrounding the Stargate. Somehow, that seemed more telling to him than the trees did, but it led to the same conclusion so he supposed maybe it didn't matter much.

"Was it this quiet while SG-2 was here?" Lieutenant Lauder asked, looking around with evident unease.

"Griff didn't mention anything about it," Kofield responded, "Knowing him, he probably didn't notice, or didn't care if he did."

The main thing Jonas knew about Major Griff was that he despised babysitting duty. Over the course of the mission Jonas had accompanied SG-2 on, he became aware that Major Griff had held a grudging respect for Dr. Jackson, and despised Jonas all the more because he saw him as trying to replace the ascended Jackson. He would have been difficult to get along with anyway, but because of his affinity for Dr. Jackson, Major Griff had been completely impossible.

* * *

 _1045hrs_

Jonas had been absorbed in photographing the Goa'uld symbols for the better part of two hours, while Lt. Marshal set up her equipment on the other side of the ruins. The hill was a perfect vantage point for her study. The rest of SG-7 was hanging out halfway between the ruin site and the Stargate, looking bored. Lt. Lauder was on watch, Major Kofield and Captain Reiner setting up the camp site.

Jonas knew he didn't have any reason to try and finish in a hurry, but he couldn't help it. His every instinct was to work as quickly as caution and thoroughness would allow. He'd spent almost his entire life striving to not only be faster, but also more accurate, than anyone around him.

" _You're either the best, or you're nothing,"_ his father and several teachers over the years had told him. To them, a man's worth was measured in how well he did academically.

Jonas set the camera aside and stood from where he'd been crouching. Some people took photos as they translated, but Jonas found he was able to work more fluidly if he completely recorded everything visible, then did the translation work and digging for concealed artifacts.

Typically, more archaeological personnel would be dispatched as they became available, but this was a relatively small, low-priority site. In other words, General Hammond deemed it just interesting enough not to ignore completely. But the main reason they were here was the unusual light phenomenon.

There had been a time when anything Goa'uld related was of intense interest. But after six years of abandoned worship sites that contained nothing more than a fragment of Goa'uld history that might or might not prove relevant to know at some unspecified later date (not to mention periodic funding cuts and constant threats) the SGC had gradually reduced emphasis on exploring such sites.

In other words, Jonas was here because nobody else wanted to be.

Jonas carefully packed the camera in its case to prevent it from being accidentally damaged, and then began walking around to stretch his legs, wandering over to where Lt. Marshal was working. Now absorbed in her task, Marshal had lost her stunned bunny look.

Marshal had a hard set to her jaw and cold look she offered anyone who made friendly advances. In fact, until this morning, Jonas hadn't been sure her hazel eyes ever lost their look of utter disdain for every human she encountered. But now she was merely intensely focused, so much so that she was ignoring the short strand of brunette hair that had fallen into her face while she set up her equipment, pausing now and then to look around her in evident wonder.

Jonas decided he liked her best when he was nowhere near her. She lost that hard edge when she wasn't engaging someone in conversation. She became more human when her hands were busy with her work. Marshal was far from the first person he'd encountered that came to life only when doing the work they loved. In fact, he'd spent most of his life surrounded by such people.

Jonas looked past where Marshal was working, toward a wide swath cut from the forest where the ground lowered into a long, narrow valley.

Jonas had found, much to his surprise, that most people were blind to anything that didn't move, or didn't conform to what they expected to see. People didn't consciously see any object unless they were paying direct, focused attention to it. If they didn't expect to see it, they literally didn't see it. It was called Inattentional Blindness, and many books had been written on the subject

But Jonas didn't see things that way. When he looked around, his brain cataloged every detail. When Dr. Fraser had administered a test trying to measure his visual memory, she'd said it was surprising he could function normally at all because his brain was trying to process everything it saw, without prioritizing any of it, ensuring absolute conscious recall of whatever he looked at.

And so it was hardly surprising that he not only saw the object at the other end of the valley, but it registered in his brain as an unnatural material. Unlike most people, he didn't need to take a second look. Instead, he needed time to process. He was already turning away from the valley and moving back towards the ruins by the time it struck him what he'd seen.

He stopped where he stood, and clicked the 'talk' button on his radio.

"Major Kofield, I think you should come see this."

Kofield's voice came over the radio, "Where are you, and what is it?"

"I'm with Lt. Marshal," Jonas answered meekly, realizing his radio skills still needed some work.

Before coming to the SGC, the concept of a hand-held radio was only a vague theory he'd overheard some technicians discussing. Back on Kelowna, radios used for communication were operated by trained military personnel. The small radio he carried on his person now was foreign to him.

Jonas returned to where Marshal had been working. He didn't try to explain to her what the commotion was about, he just pointed.

"I don't see anything," Marshal said.

Then the harsh light of the planet's sun reflected off the metallic surface as it moved towards them.

"Wait... that looks like... a vehicle of some kind."

Jonas nodded, "That's what I thought."

Kofield and the others had by then arrived, and followed Jonas and Marshal's gaze to the object.

"Looks like we're about to have some company," Kofield remarked dryly.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note: This story is completely written. I will be uploading one chapter per day. It is potentially slightly AU, but not on purpose. It doesn't matter a great deal, but it is set between "Cure" and "Prometheus", and references are made to episodes prior to that.  
_**

 _ **From the moment I joined this website, I have wanted to do a fic for SG-1. Between it being one of my all-time favorite TV shows, with a total of ten seasons, two (or three, depending on how you look at it) movies and a couple of spinoffs to its name and the fact that I wanted to do a fic with Jonas Quinn who was only in season six, the prospect was always daunting.**_

 _ **When I set out to write this story sometime last year, I did not anticipate the many, many hangups I would have. Problems I had heretofore never encountered in any story (fan fiction or otherwise) that I had ever worked on. For the first time, I found myself desperately wishing I had a friend who liked SG-1 who could Beta read a story for me.**_

 _ **SG-1 deserves better than this. But after three complete resets, much editing and more than one moment of panic, I can say with some certainty that this is the best I can do as of right now. That makes it good enough for me, and I hope it's good enough for you.**_

 _ **All of that said, I wrote this for my entertainment, and because it's been a personal private goal of mine for years. I am publishing it here for your entertainment, and I would not wish for anyone to continue reading the story if they were not enjoying it.**_

 _ **Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it (when I wasn't freaking out about it, that is).**_


	2. Greetings

Sam had been furious when she'd found out the Colonel had sent Jonas off-world but made her stay behind. She initially hadn't been fond of Jonas, but over time he'd won her over.

"I don't understand, sir. You knew I wanted to go on this mission, but you said 'no'. Then you turned around and sent Jonas with SG-7. Why?" Sam had asked.

When she had first met Colonel Jack O'Neill, Sam had made a lot of assumptions about him, only to find herself forced to face the fact that she was somehow more prejudiced than he was.

Over the years, Sam had discovered several things about Jack. He was a competent leader, and had not obtained his rank through accident or making nice with his superiors. He'd earned every bit of it through dedication, hard work, and combat and leadership skills. Jack O'Neill was much smarter than he pretended to be, and Sam no longer believed anything he said or did was accidental.

Daniel had never let Jack get away with a thing. If Jack pretended foolishness, Daniel would pressure him. He would keep arguing, keep pushing, keep on his course until Jack finally admitted that he wasn't as ignorant as he was pretending to be. They had disagreed almost all of the time, and Sam had never seen two people who enjoyed it more. The fact that they refused to let each other live in denial was probably what had made them such good friends. Two stubborn, intelligent, opinionated people with opposing views _had_ to either become best friends or kill each other.

Now Daniel was gone, and Sam felt as if he'd left her with the job of keeping Jack honest, not only with the team, but with himself as well. The Colonel, she knew, still didn't like Jonas, and took out his grief over the loss of Daniel on the young Kelownan without even seeming to realize he was doing it.

"Major Kofield's team needed a linguist," Jack had told her, "I let them borrow ours. Besides, he could use more experience in the field."

"I agree, but every time any team goes off-world?"

Jack paused, then answered, "It's not... _every_ time."

"Maybe you better check your facts, Colonel," Sam said, "You've pushed him off-world at every opportunity. He hasn't had more than a couple of days off since he joined SG-1."

"Oh come on, Carter," Jack scoffed, "Daniel went off world with other teams all the time."

"In case you hadn't noticed, sir, Daniel always asked to go off-world, you never had to find excuses to make him go. Jonas didn't ask for this, did he?"

"Jonas is a member of my team," Jack said, "That makes it my job to tell him where and when he goes."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to burn him out and get rid of him. How many times have we gone on missions without him because you had already sent him off-world with another team?"

"Why are you so mad about this?" Jack asked.

"Why _aren't_ you?" Sam shot back, "You know what overwork does. You know what burnout is. You've experienced it firsthand. Sir, if you don't stop doing this to him, you're going to break him."

* * *

 _Guf'yn, Day 1, 1100hrs_

It was obvious that Major Kofield was far from thrilled at the unexpected arrival of the strangers. Jonas could hardly blame him. Kofield's team didn't initiate relations, their main purpose was study.

Captain Reiner looked more at ease than Kofield. Reiner was younger than Kofield, short and stocky, with blond hair and blue eyes. He was staunchly supportive of his boss. Reiner's main job was to make his superior and team look good. Usually he did this by offering his major advice, but the P90 he carried at the ready signified that he was just as prepared to lay down covering fire.

Just before the vehicle crested the rise, Reiner spoke in a low voice to Kofield, casting a significant look at Jonas as he did so. Jonas knew when he was being volunteered for something. He'd seen it happening enough lately between Colonel O'Neill and various team leaders to recognize it.

"Quinn," Kofield said, "You're our cultural expert. Think you can handle first contact?"

Calling Jonas a cultural expert was a stretch. Jonas had only made initial contact with a few people, and always with SG-1 to back him up. Still, SG-1 was an exploration team, it was in their job description to handle those uncertain first few minutes, hours or days of contact. And Jonas was a member of SG-1, the shoulder patch on his jacket said so.

Jonas felt nerves gathering.

So many things could go wrong. He'd only been in the field for a short time, but in that time he'd learned that there was a lot more to it than memorizing every note Dr. Jackson had ever written and then trying to emulate the man. He tried reminding himself that -to even read those notes- he'd had to learn a whole new language, something he'd done in just a few weeks. Kelownans spoke English, but their written language looked nothing like what he'd found at the SGC. Nobody had realized he couldn't at first read any of the papers put in front of him, he'd had to teach himself unaided. But learning a new language was essentially an academic matter. It was far different from interacting with strange cultures and people, trying to keep on top of customs and personalities and regulations all at once.

 _You are a member of SG-1, Jonas. Act like it._

He forced himself to smile and nodded an affirmative to Kofield, and drew up the picture in his mind of Colonel O'Neill interacting with new people. The Colonel was often a bit sarcastic and even antagonistic, and Jonas didn't feel that he could do it effectively; but the important thing was that the Colonel was always either very relaxed about the whole thing, good-humored and even enjoying himself, or doing very well at pretending.

That was one thing Jonas knew how to do.

Ever since he came to the SGC, Jonas had been in an almost constant state of anxiety, and that was when he wasn't drowning in feelings of guilt. Everything about the strange new world he'd requested asylum on was a challenge for him, and nobody wanted anything to do with him. His first impression to all was that he was associated not only with those responsible for the death of Dr. Jackson, but was one of the individuals who had accused Jackson of sabotage, despite his being an eye-witness who knew the truth. After months as a pariah trying to learn how to fit in and make friends, Jonas knew he had mastered the ability to pretend to be okay when he was not.

The team lined up where they would be in view of the vehicle when it crested the rise. The only available cover was the ruins, and the team was positioned close to them, just in case the initial contact went extremely badly. That is, except for Reiner, who stood near the DHD. If things went from bad to worse, he was prepared to dial in the 'Gate address while the others did their best to lay down covering fire. If necessary, he would use the DHD itself as cover.

Glancing down the line, Jonas saw that all members of SG-7 had placed their fingers on the trigger guards of their weapons. Jonas himself wasn't carrying a P90. Up until recently, he had primarily used a zat'nik'tel and, before that, an intar. Now he carried an M9.

Jonas had been quick to see that SG-1 was a very physical unit, and that -if he ever wanted to impress them- he was going to have to learn to fight, learn fast, and learn well. He wasn't that good with a P90 yet, zats were easier to master. Just recently he'd graduated to using an M9.

Before he'd had any weapon's training, Jonas had been sparring with Teal'c. He regularly lost, but figured there was no shame in a former desk jockey losing sparring matches with a Jaffa warrior who had been the First Prime of Apophis.

Of course, all this training had led to an increased appetite. It had quickly become evident that -while he was human- Jonas' people had followed a slightly different evolutionary path, resulting in his needing more calories than the average Earth human. Jonas ate frequently and in quantity, and he was especially drawn to sugars, which formed a necessary part of his diet as it was not in an Earth human's.

Thinking about that reminded Jonas he hadn't gotten breakfast this morning. Colonel O'Neill had told him first thing this morning that he was assigned to the mission with SG-7; a briefing followed, then deployment.

" _Never attempt diplomacy on an empty stomach,"_ First Minister Valis had told him once.

Jonas forced himself to remain relaxed and still, remembering the first time an SG team had come to Kelowna. Jonas recalled that he'd been volunteered to conduct initial public relations (meaning a tour) then too. He'd been scared to death of being responsible for the first impression aliens would have of his world. He tried not to think about how badly that had ended.

He'd been selected primarily based on his ability to get along well with others. In other words, he could smile benignly when someone insulted him, laugh at jokes that weren't funny and generally make everyone in the room feel like they were smarter just by his being there. That in itself was a difficult skill to master, but even more difficult was also being obviously valuable and intelligent. He had not become a scientist or an adviser by feigning stupidity, he'd done it by proving he was brilliant. But he'd gained his position by being agreeable and inoffensive. It also hadn't hurt that some of his bosses on the way up the ladder had been women, who found him nice to look at and pleasant to speak to.

 _Be polite, but don't grovel,_ He told himself _. You're not looking for a position, just building a bridge._

Yeah. A bridge someone else might have to cross later.

The jeep-like vehicle crested the rise and then came to a stop, and the driver stepped out.

She was quite tall, thin and seemed very white in the planet's strange light, but -at least upon first inspection- she looked to have had ancestors from Earth. Jonas almost immediately took in her extremely long white or light blond hair, which reached below her waist and was held back from her face and shoulders with a hair tie, her angular features, unusually small ears, the loose white clothing she was wearing with its shimmering metallic trim and the pale blue gaze she regarded him with.

It was her eyes that most intrigued him, for he could see even from a distance that her iris and pupil were not the same as his and the Earthling's. Rather than being circular, her pupil was very slightly oval, taller than it was wide. Her iris took up more of her visible eye than a normal Earthling's would. It was only a very slight bit of difference, but the effect was startling, at least for Jonas.

He had finished absorbing all this by the time her companions disembarked. There were three of them aside from her, all showing varying degrees of suspicion and fear. They were all taller than she, and she was several inches taller than Jonas. They were also all much fairer skinned than either Jonas or the members of SG-7, though some of them had darker hair and eyes than the first one did. It was she who moved forward first, seemingly more curious than worried about the strangers.

Jonas wasn't sure whether he should initiate the greetings or wait for her to do so. He didn't even know if she spoke a language he would understand. He found that he was staring at her eyes, trying to guess her emotional and mental state, trying to guess how best to interact with her. And she was staring at him, possibly wondering the same thing. It was astonishing how much that slight difference of eye construction affected perception; he couldn't even guess what she was thinking.

He found that deeply unsettling. Much of what Jonas had done during his life had depended on his ability to read people. He had to read not only the First Minister, but every boss he'd had before. He'd had to read his teachers, his fellow students and most of all his father. He had to be able to instantly recognize a person's mood, and act accordingly in order to get a job, keep a job, earn a promotion or just avoid getting himself into trouble. Now it was more important than ever.

Was she carrying a weapon concealed in her billowing pants or blouse? Did one of her companions have a weapon in their belt or behind their back? She didn't move in a military manner, she moved more like a dancer than a warrior, light and graceful and fluid. But that was no guarantee. Jonas struggled not to let his anxiety get the better of him.

Calling up his best diplomat's smile, he took a step forward and addressed her, because she appeared to be leading the others, or at least they were following her.

"Hi," Jonas began, deciding that raising a hand in greeting as O'Neill often did might be seen as threatening and so he didn't do it, "We... come in peace."

Her eyes widened when he started to talk, but otherwise she didn't respond. Had she understood him? She was looking him up and down slowly. He kept the idiotic smile on his face as his mind raced, trying to tell if he'd done anything wrong, what he'd done wrong, and how he could fix it. He saw no markings on her outfit or those of her companions or even on their vehicle that gave him much of a clue as to their origins, and just taking a stab in the dark about their language seemed ill-advised.

"We... uh, came through the..." he turned slightly and gestured, hoping she would supply him with her word for Stargate, if nothing else.

"Chappa'ai," she said.

"Chappa'ai," Jonas repeated.

The Goa'uld word for Stargate. From Dr. Jackson's notes, Jonas knew that most planets either forgot that name or changed it after the Goa'uld were overthrown or abandoned them. Dr. Jackson had devoted an entire notebook to the numerous different words various people used for the Stargate, if they had a word for it at all, which some did not. Jonas recalled the writings in that notebook now, and his memory told him almost no people used the term Chappa'ai unless they were Goa'uld or under Goa'uld rule. The single word unnerved him because of its implication.

"None have come through the Chappa'ai in a long time," she continued, and Jonas inwardly sighed with relief that she was only speaking very heavily accented English, "It was decided by the Community Directorate that it was no longer possible to make contact with other worlds."

"Oh... it's possible," Jonas told her.

"It would seem so," she remarked.

He still couldn't read her, even though she was talking now. He couldn't decide if she was being cold or merely cautious. Her tone of voice seemed caught between the two. She was almost hostile, but she could merely be afraid or startled by the presence of five strangers to her world. Jonas knew it was an important distinction; he needed to know which mood she was in to know how best to approach her and try to win her trust, and subsequently that of her people.

"Why have you come?" she asked.

Marshal fielded that one before Jonas could answer, "We came to study your world, in particular the light phenomenon. We've never encountered a sun quite like yours."

"Explorers?" the woman asked, her gaze flicking only briefly to Marshal before returning to Jonas.

"Yes," Jonas answered gently, "We didn't mean any harm."

She seemed to come to a decision, and made her introduction, "I am Ayelas. This planet is called Guf'yn, and I am from the city of Kiri."

"Jonas," he felt his smile grow more genuine as he let himself relax, though he stifled the desire to say where he was originally from, instead saying, "Earth."


	3. Field Trip

"Quinn and Ayelas did most of the talking," Kofield said, "The rest of us stood around and tried not to look awkward. Marshal jumped in from time to time, but it turned out that Ayelas was a historian. She and her team had come out to study the ruins near the Stargate. According to her, the ruins were the remains of a Goa'uld temple. She didn't have a name for the Goa'uld."

"That's about when you called the SGC the first time, wasn't it?" Carter inquired.

"It was," Kofield replied, "I was hoping to get SG-2 back before we went ahead with relations. General Hammond told us it was a no go."

"Two members of the team reported in with headaches," Carter told him, "Dr. Fraser thought at first that it was fatigue. That is, until we began to analyze the first translations you relayed for Jonas."

Before Kofield could ask what she meant by that, Jack interrupted.

"It's a long way to Kiri," he said, "We better get started if we want to get there before dark."

"The day/night cycle of Guf'yn is thirty three hours," Reiner pointed out, falling silent when Jack gave him a sharp look.

"Carter, tell SG-3 to set up shop here at the 'Gate. The rest of us are going on a field trip to Kiri."

"Yes sir," Carter said, glancing apprehensively at Kofield, then Jack before she left.

Jack knew she was still upset. And with good reason. If SG-1 had been here, Jonas would never have been in the position Kofield had put him in. General Hammond had given Kofield a go to continue advancing relations with the Kiri after he'd spoken briefly with Ayelas via the MALP. Hammond advised caution, but told them to proceed. Looking for allies and technology was the primary directive of the Stargate Program. They had found friendly people, who might well have knowledge or technology that could help fight the Goa'uld. It was impossible to guess their level of science, medicine or weaponry with only the vehicle to go from. It was obvious, even though Ayelas was not an expert on the subject, that the Kirian knew more about the sky of their world than Marshal. If they could be convinced to share even that much knowledge, it would significantly accelerate Marshal's research.

But it was one thing to keep getting to know them.

What Kofield had decided to do was another thing entirely.

* * *

 _Day 1, 1300hrs_

Even at maximum crowding, the vehicle would not carry seven passengers. The four Guf'yn were clearly all determined to stay together, which was sensible as they were unarmed and reasonably cautious about the newcomers and also worried about the Stargate being activated.

Clearly irritated, Kofield reluctantly agreed to stay behind. Marshal was the science expert, so she would benefit most from reading the research the Guf'yn had done on their planet. Jonas was the closest thing he had to a public relations expert. Aside from which, Ayelas had used several Goa'uld words during the conversation when they were discussing not only the Stargate and temple ruins, but condition of the Guf'yn sky and how the light affected people, animals and plants on the world.

All of SG-7 had a rudimentary understanding of Goa'uld, but the words and phrases they had learned all related to military activity, not to the scientific or historical fields. Aside from which, Ayelas had pronounced several of the words and phrases so strangely even Jonas had difficulty translating. Marshal would need his help if the notes were interspersed with the same language.

Marshal looked as if she'd rather have taken a zat shot to the face than do what she was doing now.

Jonas had been sandwiched between two of the Guf'yn in the backseat. One of them hung onto the back, holding onto the roll-bar. Marshal rode up front with Ayelas. Jonas had noticed earlier that all four of the Guf'yn were wearing either scarves or clothing with enough fabric near the neck to serve in place of one. They covered their mouths and noses before starting off. It was then that Jonas processed the significance of one of the few differences between this vehicle and an Earth jeep.

There was no windshield.

It didn't take long after the vehicle turned around and got going for Jonas to realize that a scarf was a good idea, though a pair of goggles would be even better. Fortunately, one of the pockets of his tactical vest contained sunglasses, which he put on to keep debris out of his eyes. Marshal did the same a short while later. Jonas would have suggested it to her, but there was so much wind he knew she wouldn't have heard him, and he couldn't lean forward because one of the Guf'yn was essentially sitting on his shoulder and pinning him him place.

They sped down into the valley. The terrain was rockier than it looked, and the vehicle jolted and bounced. It kicked up more than just dirt, but rocks as well. Even stuck in the middle, Jonas found he was glad of the protection offered by the long sleeves of his standard issue jacket as he felt pebbles and grit ping off the fabric. After a particularly sharp bit of debris hit his cheek, Jonas elected to tuck into the collar of his jacket as best he could. Up front, Marshal did the same.

The valley had seemed fairly small and narrow from above, but once down in it, Jonas found it seemed unnervingly wide open and exposed. The ridges along either side of it were lined with the blackened pines, which stood like sentinels. They were planted at regular intervals, and each was the same as the last. Jonas wondered how much work it would take to plant and maintain trees so that they were all the same height and fullness. He also wondered how far this artificially planted forest extended, and why it had been made. He made a note to ask Ayelas about it later.

It took them a good half hour to make it all the way across the valley, and another five minutes to get up the other side. If they'd held out hope that the terrain would be easier at the other end of the valley, they were sorely mistaken. The bumps only got bigger, the jolts harder. Though he could have done without elbows jamming into his ribs from both sides, Jonas grew to appreciate being prevented from bouncing all over the place because he was being sat on by two Guf'yn. He wondered how athletic the guy holding on to the back had to be not to be knocked off. It was clear that the Guf'yn were used to this. Marshal, however, was not. She braced herself as best she could, but it was clear she was going to have a few bruises from this ride once it was over.

Jonas wasn't exactly looking forward to going back this way.

* * *

 _1500hrs_

Jonas had finally found a rhythm that seemed to be working and reduced the impact of each jolt the vehicle took. They'd left the valley far behind, and also the eerie forest. The terrain had become more hilly, and the pines less evenly placed. There were also multiple varieties and heights, along with some brush. They had not encountered a road, but it was clear that vehicles passed this way often enough to keep the plant growth cut back from their path. But now, quite suddenly, Ayelas took a right turn around some thick brush and the ride smoothed out. They'd found a road. It was a mixture of sand and gravel, not pavement, but it was still a huge relief to be on something a little more forgiving.

The noise level decreased as well. The wind was still rushing by, but the deafening rattling, crashing, banging sounds of the last two hours disappeared at once.

"We're not far from the city now," Ayelas shouted over the sound of the wind.

Though they had, of course, already gone much farther than SG-2 had when they were scouting, Jonas wondered how SG-2 could have missed tire tracks. They'd said some civilization was probably here or had been until recently, but they'd made no mention of tire tracks.

Jonas found the likely answer almost immediately. The rocks in the valley through which they had passed were the kind one might expect to find in a river or lake bed. During certain times of the year, the valley was probably full of water. Possibly no vehicles had passed through the valley for some time before this one. No vehicles, no tracks. SG-2 hadn't gone much farther than the far edge of the valley.

He decided to ask Ayelas if the valley ever flooded. Not now. Just now he was afraid to open his mouth. The ride had gotten smoother, but the tires were throwing up a lot more sand and gravel than before.

The road went sharply uphill, and then they crested the rise. Beyond it was cleared land, about a mile's worth. Beyond it, a wall of pale stone. The stone looked slightly blue, but Jonas guessed that it was more of a beige color in what for him would be normal light conditions.

The wall, he noticed, was not entirely solid. In fact, it sort of reminded him of a castle wall, complete with gates and narrow openings allowing guards to look through. There was an enormous hole in it, an opening allowing the passage of traffic. It was wide enough for a row of semi-trucks to drive alongside one another. Glancing around the wall at the land beyond the city, Jonas caught sight of a cobblestone road in the distance, and farm houses, fences and barns. The wall was the entrance to the city, behind it was a more civilized world than the one they'd just driven through.

Long ago, Kiri was probably the first line of defense against invaders coming through the Stargate. It struck Jonas as odd somehow. He knew Goa'uld sometimes attacked through the Stargate, but not generally in a power struggle with other Goa'uld. More often ships were involved. Worlds were won and lost in space, not on the ground. And there was another puzzle.

Though the walls rose to seemingly impossible heights, Jonas still saw that a building towered above them. As the vehicle drove through the gateway and into the city, the illusion of a castle was all but lost. Inside, the city was bustling, thriving, and extremely modern, except for the pale cobblestone of the streets. Cars and trucks drove down roads, and there were highrises everywhere. Jonas guessed neighborhoods were somewhere on the other side.

The walls, for all their grandeur, appeared to be relics from another era, without guards posted, and the gateway seemed to lack an actual gate. There also appeared to be only three walls, unless the one on the far side was very much shorter than the other three.

They had crossed onto a real road the instant they entered the city. Looking around at the buildings on either side, Jonas was struck by something odd about them. What he'd noticed was a lack of sun reflection. He realized it was because there was no glass in the windows, just as there were no windshields on the vehicles, all of which were open to the elements.

Other than the wind generated by the movement of the vehicle, Jonas had noticed no breeze since they arrived. He'd seen no clouds. But surely there had to be weather here. There were people, there were plants, and there almost definitely had to be animals. For all of that, there also had to be rain. There had to be wind. There had to be weather patterns. Every habitable planet had weather patterns.

From the moment he got to Earth, Jonas had been fascinated by what they knew of weather. It was a lot of information to absorb, but Jonas had been eager to learn, most especially about how pollution affected life. Jonas had come from a smog drenched city in Kelownan territory. He barely knew what air clear of fumes and smoke smelled like. The ability to semi-accurately predict the weather was astonishing to him, and also deeply concerning.

The buildings of Kiri did not otherwise make an immediate impression on Jonas, except for how strikingly similar they all seemed to be. All were the same beige stone, and all appeared to have been designed by the same person or persons, as if they'd all been built at once to suit the specifications of a single party. That was unusual in cities. Cities began life as towns, and grew up gradually. Some old buildings remained, others were knocked down and replaced with new ones, but there was usually variation in style from one building to the next, because trends changed, builders changed, people changed, construction methods changed, materials changed, everything changed. But the buildings here... they reminded Jonas of the trees near the Stargate. Rigid, uniform... unnatural.

He wondered why.

"Where are we going?" Jonas heard Marshal yelling the question at Ayelas, but he missed the answer.

Jonas hadn't felt concerned until he heard worry in Marshal's voice. They were a long way from the Stargate, and this wasn't some small town or village. It was a bustling city, one that was walled on three sides. Relic or not, that wall would hinder any attempt at a quick escape if they needed to make one. Jonas had seen every detail of the city as they entered, but that didn't mean he'd processed every possible meaning or implication of what he'd seen. Despite her scientific credentials, Marshal was still a lieutenant in the Air Force, a military organization. She thought in military terms. Jonas knew he needed to start thinking that way too, especially this far away from the rest of SG-1.

Jonas might have come from a world at war, and have held a place as adviser to the most powerful man in all of Kelowna, but he was not a military man. Jonas was an academic. He knew how to take overwhelming amounts of information in and spit back something coherent and manageable, but that was not the same as being able to walk into a situation and know immediately what kind of battlefield it would make. He was an adviser who looked for the diplomatic path first, and violence last.

But with the Goa'uld, Jonas knew there could be no diplomatic solution. That had already been tested and proven, mostly by Dr. Jackson through missions SG-1 had gone on. Jonas had known immediately that Dr. Jackson was brilliant, but also that he was very passive by nature and choice. He wouldn't choose to fight without having first exhausted his alternatives. And yet, he fought the Goa'uld, ready to kill or die for his cause. That alone was sufficient to make Jonas count them as a true enemy.

The vehicle came to a stop in front of a large, low building.

"This is the Community Negotiation and Discussion Office," Ayelas said, "Before we can continue, the Community Directorate must approve your presence in Kiri, as well as our return."

"You have to get approval to return to your own city?" Marshal asked.

"We have returned ahead of schedule. Such matters must be Discussed, and a decision reached," Ayelas said, "Don't worry. We have good reason to be back before our time. Community Director Whilbarr will no doubt take that into account."

They got out of the vehicle, and Marshal and Jonas followed Ayelas inside. Jonas paused near the entrance to read the sign, which troubled him. It was a large white sign with black lettering, and it gave the building the same name as Ayelas had. What troubled him was that it was written in Goa'uld.


	4. The Kiri

_1700hrs_

The Council for the Kirian Community Directorate did not seem so much suspicious as merely incredibly deliberate. In other words, they were slow, cautious and thorough and had a very specific way of going about things. A lot of talking was involved.

The room in which they had convened was an interior one, and therefore had no windows. At first there didn't seem to be much in the way of doors either, until Jonas processed the way the doors he'd walked through to get here had looked. They had all been open. Once closed, they would be flush with the wall, and had the same coloration and texture as it. Small indentations in the stone indicated a concealed handle. There was in fact at least one door on each of the six walls. The room was a hexagon. There were flat, seemingly decorative metal tables against the walls, with small carvings of black wood or beige stone sitting on them, and artwork hung on the walls above.. All of it was subordinate to the large, rectangular white granite table with its ornate, black metal chairs. The table took up most of the floor space, and was plenty big enough for Jonas and Marshal, plus Ayelas and her people to sit on one side, while the Council occupied the other. One noteworthy thing was the fact that the light overhead was an incandescent bulb, dimmer than Jonas was used to, but still it made colors visible as Jonas was used to seeing them rather than how the Guf'yn sun made them look.

Community Director Whilbarr, an exceptionally tall Guf'yn man with black eyes and a long, thin face, sat in the middle, flanked on either side by the rest of the Council. Jonas sat at the very end of the table on the opposite side, with Marshal at his right. He was closest to the door through which they'd come, but he felt that lent no advantage if things went sideways. Standing on either side of the door outside the room were men whose stance and black with gold attire fairly radiated their purpose as guards.

Jonas was increasingly nervous, he didn't like being so far from help, so isolated, so confined. And he especially didn't like that every bit of text he'd seen, from the sign outside to the Visitor's Tag he'd been given to wear, was in an ancient Goa'uld dialect that he was only barely able to recognize and read.

He half expected Whilbarr's voice to echo and his eyes to glow. But they didn't.

Thus far, Ayelas had done most of the talking, describing -in painfully accurate and thorough detail- the exact events leading up to this addressing of the Council. She described every bit of the drive out, and repeated the conversation between herself and the SG-team almost verbatim. It took a long time, and Jonas became increasingly aware of how uncomfortable the metal chairs were. He refused to let himself shift or fidget, but Marshal was not able to be quite so still.

Marshal was trained to endure discomfort, but not of this sort. Lengthy meetings where boring things were talked about for hours on end and nothing appeared to be accomplished were Jonas' forte. What was being said was only a small portion of what was going on here.

How Ayelas stood as she spoke said much. She did not move at all, and never let her gaze settle for too long on any one member of the Council. She did not look at her companions or the Earthlings at all. She kept her hands still in front of her just below her sternum, her left hand covering her right. Her tone seldom varied, betraying no emotion and never hurrying. She was attempting to bore the Council into submission by speaking long and dull, in a steady rhythm.

It was working.

The Kiri Council had expressed clear interest in the strangers at first. But once Ayelas got going, they evidently had to listen in silence until she finished. They gradually stopped glancing at Jonas and Marshal. The uninteresting décor offered them no escape, especially since they had undoubtedly been in this room a thousand times before. They didn't dare look at each other, because that would be admitting that they were bored. They began to look glazed, even though they struggled to maintain a look of interest, pretending that Ayelas didn't have them beaten.

Jonas didn't know why things were proceeding in this manner, but he'd been here before. Not in this room or with these people, but in this situation. He suspected Ayelas' objective was to instill such boredom in the Council that they would accede to any suggestion or request she made of them just so that they could escape The Meeting from Hell. Jonas had used the boredom tactic in some of his own presentations when he knew his audience would be otherwise unwilling to see things his way, or might otherwise be inclined to ask questions he didn't have answers to.

Ayelas was good at it.

Her companions were equally good at their job, which was to show nothing in their expression. All sat perfectly still. Two were leaning against the backs of their chairs, one leaned forward slightly to rest his forearms on the table. Jonas had taken the leaning against a chair back position, but he was regretting that choice. Now was no time to be moving around though. Expression of impatience was weakness, and would also become the most interesting thing in the room. Jonas did not want to be subject to extensive questioning, specifically because there was much he was not authorized to say unless Kofield (as the team leader) gave him permission. And there was still more he could not say unless General Hammond himself was contacted and gave the okay.

Lt. Marshal could not keep still. She kept adjusting, trying to find a comfortable position. No such position existed, but she hadn't had enough experience in this kind of setting to know that. There were only positions which brought temporary relief, and then made the discomfort all the worse. Holding still and waiting for the end to come was the only real option. But Marshal didn't know that, and she kept squirming, thinking she was being subtle, but really attracting every eye in the room because she was literally the only interesting thing available.

But the people and seating weren't the only elements of the contest they had entered in to. The temperature had been set to that precise level that is just slightly too cold for comfort if one is sitting still, and the metal chairs ensured everyone got the full effect of that. There had also been the obligatory beverage served, which everyone had by politeness been required to take one of.

Ayelas had said it was called Percolate. Jonas recognized it as being similar to coffee, except that he'd learned to like coffee during his time on Earth, and he doubted anyone could develop a taste for this vile brew. Like coffee, it tasted completely different from how it smelled, and the first sip of it told Jonas it had enough caffeine to rouse someone from a coma. But it had an element of spice to it that didn't add flavor, instead just adding a bite to the bitterness of it. The unpleasant taste, effect of caffeine and amount of liquid in each mug ensured maximum discomfort, but it also drew people into drinking more of it in an attempt to stay awake while Ayelas was speaking.

Jonas didn't understand why this game existed, but he had seen it on Kelowna, Earth and virtually every planet he'd been to. "Civilized" races invariably generated lengthy meetings in place of physical combat. People made their point by being long-winded but articulate, and you lost the game if you gave in to physical weakness such as needing to stretch your legs, use the bathroom or simply losing your temper as a result of excess energy that had nowhere to go.

At the SGC, this was called a debriefing.

Except that General Hammond did his best to avoid making things more unpleasant than they had to be. The coffee at the SGC tasted good (and was optional), the chairs were comfortable(ish) and nobody was faulted for needing to use the facilities if the debriefing lasted longer than a couple of hours (which in itself was highly unusual. Hammond preferred brief debriefings).

Jonas was still uncertain what was happening here. A contest of this sort usually involved some issue more contentious than merely returning home early. Debriefings when an SG-team returned early were often the shortest of all. Maybe alien visitors were more interesting than Ayelas had led them to believe. Or maybe Ayelas was somehow on bad terms with the Council. In any case, Jonas was missing something, he was sure of it.

At last, Ayelas concluded her account, bowed slightly, and sat.

Whilbarr leaned forward a bit, folding his hands in front of him on the table.

"You came through the Chappa'ai?" Whilbarr inquired, looking at Jonas.

Rather than speak, Jonas opted to merely nod. He was unsure of the customs of these people, and so he used his own knowledge of social behavior, and what he had observed as working well for the SGC teams. Teal'c, despite alarming many on account of his size and the mark on his forehead, seemed to do very well by his quietness and way of moving. A part of Jonas also recognized that, after enduring a long speech by Ayelas, the Council would probably be best pleased by silence or at least brevity on the part of Jonas and Marshal. Some of the youngest Council members (all decidedly older than Jonas) looked quite uncomfortable at this point. They had foolishly consumed more than the obligatory single cup of Percolate, and were probably on the verge of climbing the walls.

"You came to study our sky?" Whilbarr asked.

Jonas nodded again, in the same precise way, then added, "And to study the ruins near the Stargate. We didn't know what they were, but Ayelas," he tilted his head to acknowledge her down the table, "told us that the structure was once a temple."

Whilbarr seemed to be considering this, but then Marshal jumped in.

"Ayelas tells us you have done extensive research concerning the light conditions of your planet. We came here hoping to see that so we could add to our knowledge before initiating studies of our own. We would of course share anything we learned from our studies with your people."

Jonas watched the Council's response to this, keeping his main focus on Whilbarr. He knew well that there were any number of rules Marshal might have broken. Many societies Dr. Jackson had written about did not look kindly on someone speaking out of turn. Whilbarr had addressed Jonas, not Marshal. Jonas had been doing the speaking for his side, as Whilbarr seemed to speak for the Council. Depending on the society and how they viewed a breach of protocol, they might demand that the people from Earth leave. Or they might imprison them overnight. Or worse.

The Council definitely looked offended. They said nothing and their expressions only barely changed, but they exchanged glances with one another, as people the galaxy over did when someone did something embarrassing or awkward in front of them. Marshal did not appear to notice.

"We must... Deliberate on this," Whilbarr said, ignoring Marshal and addressing only Jonas.

"We understand," Jonas responded, "Strangers from another planet coming through a device you believed was a useless relic can be... unsettling," he was of course speaking from experience.

He must have nailed the understanding, patient tone he'd been aiming for, because Whilbarr seemed to soften his expression slightly, and spoke more gently.

"In the meantime, I'm afraid you must stay within this building. The Enforcers will show you to a waiting area where amenities will be provided. I hope that your stay will not be inconvenient."

 _You and I both know being imprisoned is still being imprisoned, however you put it_ , Jonas thought.

But he smiled politely and dipped his head, "We appreciate your hospitality."

Marshal looked shocked and opened her mouth, but Jonas kicked her boot with his to silence her. Now was not the time. So far, they had not been disarmed or physically forced to do anything. If they put up a fuss now, it would only make them look bad before the Council, and possibly result in rougher handling and tighter restrictions. All arguing would accomplish was offend the Council.

Whilbarr stood, which seemed to be the signal for others to do the same.

Ayelas and her companions rose, Jonas took his cue from her and also got up. Whilbarr went to the door through which Jonas and Marshal had initially entered following Ayelas and her colleagues. Whilbarr opened the door, and summoned one of the Enforcers standing outside.

He spoke quietly, and gestured to Jonas and Marshal. The Enforcer scowled at them, then returned his attention to Whilbarr. When the Community Director ceased speaking, the Enforcer nodded curtly to him. Only then did he look at Jonas and Marshal and speak to them.

"If you would come with us please," the words were polite, the intonation brooked no argument.

The second Enforcer had a hand near the weapon holster at his belt. This part of the game Marshal understood. She glanced at Jonas and then nodded to the Enforcer who'd spoken. She led the way through the door, Jonas following. The Enforcer who'd spoken went ahead of her, the other one fell in behind Jonas.

Jonas couldn't help but think he'd gone wrong somewhere. He should never have told Kofield he could handle a first contact situation. He should never have agreed to come here with only a green Air Force lieutenant as backup. Maybe he should never have even agreed to come here with SG-7.

Despite feigning outward calm, Jonas was terrified of what might happen next.

He knew only too well how things looked from the other side. When the Kelownans first heard from the Tau'ri, there had been much suspicion among them. Some were convinced that these were not aliens at all, but enemies of Kelowna. That they were spies, or assassins. There was a great deal of fear, even among those who accepted that they might really be aliens. Aliens might want to enslave them, or possibly abduct them, or worse. Science fiction and ancient myths had taught Kelownans to fear beings from other worlds. Jonas had felt very alone when he asserted that the Tau'ri might be exactly as they appeared, peaceful and friendly. He had been just as scared as everyone else, but he had been willing to take a chance that his fears were unfounded and advised First Minister Valis to do the same.

Would the Guf'yn take that same risk?


	5. Of Animals & Language

_1900_

"Face it, Quinn, we've been shut in here for two hours. They have no intention of letting us go."

Marshal had been pacing the room like a caged animal for most of those two hours.

The room was smaller than the meeting room, but it still had a table and chairs. It was on an outside wall, and there was a couch under a window. The room was rectangular, with two doors on the wall opposite the window. One they had come through, the other at the other end of the room. The room itself was more of the beige stone, with a smaller granite table and slightly less ornate metal chairs.

The room was bathed in the odd lighting of the planet. Jonas had almost forgotten how disorienting the color shift was. He missed the meeting room already, even though the couch was more comfortable than the chairs had been. The light was bothersome to him, and was probably contributing to Marshal's growing unease.

"When Kelowna was first contacted by the SGC, it took a lot longer than two hours for the First Minister to make up his mind about what to do," Jonas told her.

"They could have at least sent us home," Marshal grumbled.

The first thing Marshal had done when she and Jonas were shown into this room was to radio Kofield and apprise him of the situation. He had agreed with Jonas, that waiting was the correct course. Chances were that the Guf'yn were merely startled and frightened, and that the way to win their trust was by being agreeable. So long as the Guf'yn were not harming them or denying them contact with their people back at the Stargate, there was no reason to panic.

Jonas was internally far less certain. He was speaking under the assumption that the Guf'yn were a reasoning people, who would behave in a rational manner. He knew well that humans did not necessarily use logic to make their decisions. That was part of why he was very afraid of provoking them. He did not want to make the Kirian feel any fear they felt was justified. At the same time, however, he did not want to be too submissive and make them feel like they could do whatever they wanted with the people of Earth. It was a fine line between being polite and being spineless. Jonas had walked that line almost every day of his professional career, and most of his schooling years too.

"Consider what you would do if you suddenly saw an animal you'd never seen before while walking home," Jonas suggested, "It's standing in the road, and you can see it has sharp claws and teeth. You don't recognize what it is, only that it's large and looks strange to you. What do you do?"

"I don't walk home," Marshal replied.

"Pretend you do," Jonas urged her.

"I avoid it," Marshal said quickly.

"But it's blocking the road. You can't get home without going past it."

"I wait for it to go away," Marshal decided.

"What if it doesn't? What if it lies down in the road, watching you?"

"Then... then I'd probably try to scare it away. Make a loud noise, or something," Marshal said.

"Would you?" Jonas asked, "Most animals run away when they feel threatened, but some animals are more aggressive than others. This one might attack you. Or it might disappear, and then attack someone later because it's decided that humans are a threat and should be attacked from behind to eliminate that threat. You might convince it to leave humans alone, or you might provoke it into stalking and eventually killing them. Do you want to take that chance?"

"Well..."

"And what if that animal could help you in some way? On Earth, lots of people have dogs for protection, and to help them with livestock. But consider thousands of years ago, when these dogs were wolves. These animals were large, dangerous predators that competed for the same food and space as humans. Yet someone made a decision to try and tame them."

Marshal didn't seem surprised by how much of Earth Jonas knew. Though they were unwilling to forget he was Kelownan, most SGC personnel did not seem to realize how much time and energy he'd had to put into research to understand all of their references.

"But _we're_ not wolves. And we certainly won't become household pets," Marshal protested.

Jonas smiled slightly, "I never said the analogy was perfect. I'm sure you've read mission files. You know we've encountered sentient species out here that are a long way from looking human. What if this creature was one of them?"

"You mean... like an Unas?" Marshal inquired.

Unas. The first race to be possessed and enslaved by the Goa'uld. Big, powerful, ferocious looking. Extremely dangerous. SG-1 had extremely negative first and second introductions to the species. But Dr. Jackson had managed to communicate with the Unas, and even to befriend one of them.

"Now you're getting it," Jonas nodded.

Marshal frowned, considering how she might feel if she met an Unas without knowing what it was.

She had undoubtedly read about how Dr. Jackson was captured by one. That Unas had treated him extremely roughly, even cruelly by some standards. But Dr. Jackson did not choose to count the Unas as an enemy, instead trying to communicate with it and gain its trust. The Unas, Chaka, proved to be intelligent and even kind for one of his species. Through sheer persistence and great patience under trying circumstances, Dr. Jackson had won Chaka's favor. But he had been Chaka's captive for days before finally being released and allowed to return home.

Marshal finally stopped pacing, but her expression didn't change. Marshal wasn't much of a people person, but it was beginning to dawn on Jonas from her tone and behavior that she especially didn't like _him_.

The fact that Marshal disliked him wouldn't normally be a cause for concern. Jonas had worked with several people in the field that didn't like him. Some of them merely refused all his attempts at being friendly, others would ignore questions or requests for assistance. Some would "accidentally" bump into him when he was carrying something, causing him to drop whatever it was. If there was something especially unpleasant or boring that needed doing, Jonas would probably be picked for it. It hurt, but he understood why it was happening, and accepted it.

The problem now was that he knew what he was doing here, and Marshal didn't. There were a lot of things Jonas didn't get, but politics was one game he did know how to play. It would be a lot easier if Marshal would listen to him. But he knew she wouldn't, and she might do the opposite of anything he said just because it was him that said it. Just now, she hadn't been receptive to his analogy until Dr. Jackson had indirectly become a part of it when Marshal mentioned Unas.

Even though things appeared relatively calm and stable for now, Jonas knew that this was a situation that could instantly spin completely out of control. Politics was a delicate art, one it had taken Jonas years of training and experience to learn. If Marshal would not follow his lead (and she wouldn't), there was no telling what might happen.

Added to his problems, Jonas was getting desperately hungry. Despite Community Director Whilbarr's promise of amenities, the only thing that had been provided was a pot of Percolate left in the center of the table. Jonas and Marshal had not touched it.

"This was supposed to be an easy, straight forward mission," Marshal said, "I just wanted to see what it was like to go off-world," she began pacing again, "And now, here I am, stuck in a room with _you_."

Jonas nodded to himself. He'd been right. It seemed like the only thing he was still good at was recognizing when people didn't like him. He used to be good at so many things, but none of his skills seemed to apply out here. It seemed like the only thing he did was make mistakes.

"Daniel was a good man," Marshal stopped pacing, and now she turned to look at him quietly, "And you're no replacement for him."

"No," Jonas agreed, "I'm not."

No one knew better than the people at the SGC just how good Dr. Jackson had been, not only as a human being, but at his job. Jonas wasn't as fast as Dr. Jackson, nor as accurate in his translation work. He didn't have anywhere near the experience with other languages and cultures that Dr. Jackson had had even before the Stargate Program.

A door opened, and a woman stood in the doorway, "The Council is ready to speak with you again."

* * *

 _2100hrs_

Jonas had been questioned thoroughly by the Council. He answered their questions to the best of his ability, though sometimes the answer was that he didn't know or could not tell them. When pressed he explained that there were people on the other side of the Stargate that he answered to. He reminded them that, like Ayelas, he was an explorer, a researcher and not a member of Earth's governing body.

Knowing how long Ayelas had talked, and how forcefully dull she'd been, Jonas employed both brevity in his answers and inflection. He smiled often, and always looked directly at whoever had asked him a question. Jonas knew his answers were less important than an open, friendly attitude. Brevity was currently his most winning trait, because the Council had been trapped in that room for many hours now, first listening to Ayelas and then deliberating amongst themselves. They wanted to go home or move on to other matters, but could not until their responsibility here was fulfilled.

Jonas and Marshal were permitted to keep their weapons, but two Enforcers were to follow them at all times, and they were not given permission to freely wander the city. Marshal seemed to think the Kirian Council was paranoid, but Jonas withheld comment.

He'd been at the SGC for almost a year, and still could not so much as venture above ground without General Hammond securing express permission for him to do so, forget leaving the base. Teal'c had worked for the Tau'ri for many years, and still had to live on the base, though the restrictions on his leaving it for any reason were far less than what they were once.

In comparison, the Kirian Council was quite relaxed.

On exiting the Community Negotiation and Discussion Office, Jonas glanced skyward and judged it to be early evening by the position of the sun. Nine o'clock at night according to his watch, and the sun was still up here on Guf'yn. Jonas had been up since about four in the morning.

Jonas had always been an early riser. He had more trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep than waking up. His body seemed to sense early morning and stubbornly insisted he wake up, no matter whether or not he had any work to do that day, or how much sleep he'd gotten the night before. It was frustrating to find his own body working against him.

It was certainly working against him now.

Ayelas had led the way on foot to a building that was distressingly similar to the one they'd just left, only a couple of stories higher. They climbed a staircase up to the fourth floor, and entered a windowless office in the interior of the building. Jonas had come to loathe windowless rooms at the SGC, but here he found them preferable because of the incandescent lights.

Ayelas' office reminded Jonas of Dr. Jackson's.

Jonas himself was usually reasonably neat, except when he was working on a project. But Dr. Jackson had left notes scattered everywhere. Towering piles of books and notebooks had intermingled with artifacts, and finding anything had been a nightmare. Jonas had only just begun to sort and catalog all of Dr. Jackson's scattered notes. After reading them, he'd packed them carefully. Having read and memorized them, Jonas would not need to access them again. As for the artifacts, Jonas had kept what would fit on the shelves, but everything else had to go or his sanity would have been next.

Ayelas had notes scattered everywhere, and notebooks both open and closed of every conceivable description all over the tables and desks. The office was about twice the size of the one Jonas had to work with, but somehow Ayelas must be even more of a messy person than Dr. Jackson had been because the piles seemed to be just as deep as what Dr. Jackson had left behind.

What was more, Ayelas seemed entirely unaware of the cluttered nature of her office. Like as not, she wasn't. When he got to working on a project, Jonas could become just as messy as anyone, and he wouldn't even notice any change until the project had been completed. He was an intermittent neat freak, oblivious one minute and obsessive the next.

Jonas wasn't trying to pry, but his quick eyes had read exposed text almost before he knew it. And what he gathered was that every single exposed bit of writing was in Goa'uld. It was hard for him to understand because it seemed to be a very old, very rare variety of Goa'uld.

Ayelas shared her books on the light phenomenon of her world, but Marshal could not read any of them. Jonas took a look at the first textbook on the subject he was handed. It wasn't just interspersed with Goa'uld for the technical or scientific parts, the whole of the book was written in slightly off-kilter Goa'uld. The root language used was a very old dialect, but contained words Jonas did not recognize from encountering it at other sites, and words used in different ways than he was familiar with. Not knowing a great deal about astronomy made it doubly difficult to know if he was translating what he was reading correctly, because -to him- it made little sense in any case.

The first thing he did was ask Ayelas. She seemed to find his ignorance amusing. Evidently, there were some less educated among the Guf'yn who did not read Goa'uld. Unfortunately, while she could translate common words, all of the salient points appeared to be solely in Goa'uld. Unlike on Earth, where at one time scientists used Latin to bridge the language gap but also had a word for many things in their own language, the Guf'yn sciences were entirely Goa'uld and nothing else.

"Don't your people find it difficult to discuss phenomena using another language?" Marshal inquired.

"I don't understand," Ayelas said.

"Well, on Earth," Marshal explained, "Most things like animals and plants have two names. They have the Latin or scientific name. And they have an English or common name."

"No," Ayelas said, her expression clearing, "That is not permitted in Kiri. If one does not learn to speak the language of science in Educationals, they do not speak of science at all."

Jonas took the word 'educationals' to mean 'schools'. Back on Kelowna, Jonas had listened to some professors saying that the world would be a great deal better if only people who understood the subject matter were allowed to remark on the subject. It seemed that was the way things worked here. Either you spoke and read Goa'uld, or you did no science at all.

Or history, if Ayelas' notes were any indication.

Jonas considered that to be a somewhat limiting way of doing things. A lot of people had made some very interesting discoveries without knowing the exact words to describe what they'd learned. Many of them had made up their own terminology. Granted, a lot of it had to be changed later to be understandable once official terms were settled on, and many things were misinterpreted because of changes in the language, but only allowing those who conformed to educational standards to contribute to society when it came to discovery and exploration didn't seem right. Aside from which, Jonas had met a number of people who could talk a good game about science, but they couldn't actually put it into practice. They didn't have the right sort of mind for discovery and invention, just for talking.

Ayelas seemed to be less than pleased to find herself sharing knowledge with someone she considered to be uneducated. At the same time, she seemed to be impressed by Jonas, who not only knew the language of her science, but could translate it for his undereducated colleague.

Marshal was less impressed. Jonas was slow and his translations were clumsy and difficult to understand. He wasn't sure if that was because of how the textbook had been written or because he was getting tired. He'd been up far too many hours, and still hadn't had the opportunity to eat. He was running on fumes, and his ability to make progress in translating was suffering as a result.

Finally, Marshal became frustrated with him. She turned to Ayelas.

"We need to get back to the Stargate."

Ayelas hadn't heard the term before. She looked to Jonas, having discovered that he knew what his often unintelligible colleague meant when she was talking.

"That's the Earth term for the Chappa'ai," Jonas told her.

"I thought you were staying on my world," Ayelas said.

"We are, for awhile at least," Marshal said, clearly annoyed that Ayelas had looked to Jonas when she spoke, "But I need to check in with my CO, and make contact with my superiors on Earth."

Ayelas declined to question the term 'CO'.

"Do you mind if we borrow some of these books to bring back with us?" Marshal asked, "We'd like to keep studying them, if that's alright."

Ayelas considered for a long moment. Finally, she nodded.

"I do not think the Council needs to be bothered with this. I will speak with Community Director Whilbarr, and then -given he consents to your departure- I will return you to the Chappa'ai myself."

"You do that," Marshal said.

"Thank you for your understanding," Jonas said to Ayelas, "And for letting us borrow your books. I'll make sure you get them back when we're done with them."

Ayelas offered him a smile, "You should wait here. I'll be back shortly."

After Ayelas had left, Marshal rolled her eyes and muttered, "I've heard that one before."


	6. New Dawn

The walled city of Kiri seemed relatively ordinary. After the long hike to get there, and all that had happened, Jack had expected... something. Not what he was seeing anyway. In a word, it looked boring. Ordinary buildings, ordinary streets, ordinary vehicles, ordinary people. Based off of the description that he'd been given, Jack had been expecting something a bit more weird, but the strangest thing about the place was the great wall that was built up around it.

The Kirian were expecting them, and a couple of Enforcers were waiting by the road into the city. They had evidently been warned that SG-1 was bound to be a little edgy with one of their own having been attacked, and they kept their weapons holstered and let the SG-teams come to them.

"Where are our people?" Jack demanded of the nearest Enforcer.

The kid looked scared of him. Or maybe just what he represented. Jack didn't care right now.

"If you will come with us," an Enforcer standing a little further away was the one who spoke, and indicated with a gesture which way he wanted them to go.

Jack looked past the scared kid. The other Enforcer didn't look that much older, but he was a whole heckuva lot calmer, as if this particular situation was entirely familiar to him, and really quite ordinary. Based on what Jack knew, that was impossible, which made the Enforcer pretty good at faking it. Normally Jack could appreciate a good faker of confidence, and respect it, but not today.

Jack had spent the last several hours walking, stewing in his own worry, listening to the echo of Daniel's voice in his head, saying that he should have done something, that it had been obvious from the start that things weren't as they appeared. Jack knew that Daniel was gone, and that it was just his subconscious bringing to the surface the memory of his friend. He'd come to rely on Daniel's instincts more than he was willing to admit. Daniel just had a way of seeing the world that was different from anyone else, and not because of his glasses or his doctorate. It was because of who Daniel had been, not what he'd known. Jack knew he could use a little of that insight right about now.

" _Jack,"_ Daniel would be saying, _"You can't blame Kofield for this. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't Kofield's, and it isn't yours either. What's important now is that we find Jonas. To do that, we have to know what happened here... and why, so just... try and be nice."_

"You first," Jack told the Enforcer, using the same tone of false assurance.

The Enforcer tilted his head slightly, as if measuring Jack. Then he acquiesced without a word.

Jack and the others followed, with the rest of the Enforcers flanking them cautiously. Slightly behind Jack, Kofield turned to Carter.

"Major Carter, about SG-2," Kofield asked, "You said you assumed that they were brought down by fatigue, but only at first. Why only at first?"

Jack was vaguely annoyed that Kofield would bring this up now, but some part of him knew the leader of SG-7 was only worried about his team, and had been sitting on this particular worry for several hours in deference to Jack's presence and questions about what all had gone on here. If there was a health hazard here, he wanted to know about it. Jack knew as well as Carter did that neither of them would have consented to walk a step away from the Stargate without an explanation. Kofield was either foolish or trusting to have continued his report and also set off for Kiri with them before being told what Carter's remark earlier had meant.

Being relieved was usually just a military expression, saying someone else was taking over a situation or location, but Kofield looked genuinely relieved to have Jack running the show now. Kofield was an Air Force Major, but it had been no accident that he led a team whose primary mission had nothing to do with other people. SG-7 was a science and research team. They didn't do combat, they didn't do initial contact, they didn't do diplomatic relations. They studied rocks, plants, and celestial bodies. Kofield wasn't a scientist, but he was happiest when the most he had to worry about was the local wildlife. The situation with Kiri had spiraled so far out of control that even an experienced man like Jack would've been caught off guard.

Like Jack, Carter had come here mad as Hell, but now she'd had a little time to cool off and listen to Kofield's report, it was clear that -while he may have made mistakes- this disaster was not Kofield's doing. Of course, they'd known from the start that was the case, but this had been Kofield's mission. It was hard not to blame him when everything went pear-shaped. Carter took pity on SG-7's leader, and answered the question.

"It's the light," Carter explained, "You've all got to be feeling it by now."

"I thought it was just tension," Reiner remarked, a pace behind the rest and keeping a wary eye on the Enforcers on either side of him.

"It feels that way, but it's actually a reaction to the light on the planet," Carter said, glancing back briefly at Reiner, "From what Dr. Fraser and I could tell before I left, it's not going to do any real damage. On Earth, certain types of artificial light are thought to be the cause of headaches, fatigue, muscle tension and so on. Some may even cause real damage. Far as I can tell, the worst that can happen here is a migraine. You wouldn't want to live with it, but once you leave, Dr. Fraser says there shouldn't be any long-term effects."

"SG-2?" Kofield inquired.

"Doc Fraser wants to keep 'em locked up so she can watch them," Jack interjected, before Carter could comment, "But they're fine. You've got nothing to worry about, Major."

Carter flinched at the persistently hostile tone Jack was taking. She knew as well as he did that Kofield had only played a very minor role in the situation on Guf'yn. Hell, at the time things fell apart, Jonas hadn't even been under Kofield's direct command anymore.

* * *

 _Day 2, 0030hrs_

Jonas was drawn into wakefulness by the smell of extremely strong coffee being brewed.

Certain military personalities seemed to take it as a personal challenge to produce the most powerfully strong black coffee in the galaxy. Jonas had often imagined that they had private bets going about who could brew the strongest coffee, and if it were actually possible to make coffee strong enough to literally hold up a spoon. So far, none of them had succeeded, but many of them had managed to concoct a brew so powerful that it blew out all your taste buds for the rest of the day.

Even though this was his first time out with SG-7, Jonas had heard of Major Kofield's coffee preferences. He'd overheard more than one conversation which had warned him in advance that Kofield's coffee was not to be trusted. If it became necessary to drink the stuff, your best bet was to thin it considerably with water. In an organization that seemed to pride itself on strong coffee, Kofield had somehow managed to outdo all the rest. It was considered bad manners and possibly weakness to decline someone's coffee in the field. You had to either not drink coffee at all or suffer through whatever substance they had brewed.

Jonas didn't think he wanted coffee this morning. He had a splitting headache, and still felt a bit shaken and jittery from the Percolate he'd drunk yesterday. He also realized that he was starving. Even though Ayelas had been true to her word and gotten them out of Kiri in good time, even securing a vehicle and driving them back to the Stargate, by the time Jonas and Marshal got there everyone had already been bedded down for the night. He had fallen asleep almost immediately without eating a thing. Now, rather than wait for the others to rouse themselves (Kofield was the only one up), Jonas did the wiser thing and broke out one of the energy bars he was carrying. He'd wait for the ration pack until the team's breakfast, but he knew he'd burned out his energy reserves yesterday. He'd need to do some serious snacking today in order to make up the difference.

"You've been pretty quiet since we got here.," Kofield remarked, when Jonas came to sit near where the coffee was brewing because it was warmer there.

Kofield spoke in a low voice to avoid being overheard, though Jonas wasn't sure if he didn't want to disturb the rest of the team or if he didn't want to attract notice. It wouldn't be the first time someone had talked to Jonas alone in a way they wouldn't with other people watching. Sometimes it was because they were privately less hostile than they pretended. Others because they were more hostile than was permissible in public. Jonas had always blamed any bruises he got on training sessions with Teal'c, but some of them had been the result of someone bumping into him "accidentally" a bit harder than would be tolerated in front of witnesses.

"Colonel O'Neill led me to believe you talk a lot," Kofield said.

Jonas found himself reciting his usual excuse for anything he was doing that was observed as being odd, saying, "It's the first time I've made initial contact with people of another world without SG-1 to back me up. Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter have more experience, and they can cut me off before I do or say something wrong."

"Such as?" Kofield asked.

"My first instinct is honesty. Sometimes too much honesty can be a bad thing," Jonas said.

"Well I'm never telling _you_ any secrets," Kofield said, "Coffee?"

"No thanks," Jonas replied, "Think I'll stick with the energy bar."

"Coward," Kofield remarked.

For a split second, Jonas thought there was a double meaning from the word and he tensed inwardly. But Kofield smiled that very slight, face-might-break-if-I-genuinely-smile smile that he'd seen on a lot of team leaders. He realized Kofield was only talking about the coffee, and relaxed.

"So, how did Marshal do?" Kofield inquired.

Jonas cocked his head quizzically, not sure how to answer.

"It's Lt. Marshal's first off-world mission," Kofield reminded him, "You're the one who was with her in Kiri. Is there anything I need to worry about?"

Jonas hesitated. There was something, but he didn't want to get Marshal into trouble over it. And he especially didn't want it getting back to Colonel O'Neill that he was reporting slip-ups of team mates to his superiors. O'Neill already didn't trust him. Jonas wasn't sure how many secrets about how he operated in the field the Colonel kept from General Hammond, but he did know there were a few.

"Come on, Quinn," Kofield said, "You just told me your first instinct was honesty. Go with it."

"Lieutenant Marshal is..." Jonas paused, but then forged on, "not very diplomatic."

"Neither am I," Kofield said, "That's why I'm not on a PR team."

Instead of answering back to Kofield or explaining his opinion, Jonas elected to look away from the Major and concentrated on the energy bar he was holding instead.

"Colonel O'Neill warned me you were a lot easier to shut down than Jackson was," Kofield said.

Jonas tried not to flinch at the comparison, and continued to avoid looking at Kofield.

"That Jackson was a firebrand. Not in a bad way, but he sure didn't take crap from anybody," Kofield recalled, "One minute you'd have charge of this quiet little archaeologist with glasses who didn't make trouble for anyone, the next he'd turn on you so fast it was like having a rabid wolf by the scruff. When he made a stand, he backed down for no one, not even General Hammond."

Jonas hadn't known Dr. Jackson for very long, but he'd learned in that time that there was no one who clung more stubbornly to their beliefs than Dr. Jackson. Jonas remembered too clearly the moment where his whole life was shattered like glass as he watched Dr. Jackson give his life for the Kelownans who were too stupid and too self-absorbed to even realize what it was they were destroying, or who.

"Must be hard, livin' in his shadow," Kofield observed.

Jonas looked over at Kofield, startled by the last remark.

So lemme guess, Marshal wouldn't follow your lead," Kofield said.

"No sir," Jonas answered, "and I don't blame her. If I were her, I wouldn't want to listen to me either."

"Maybe not, but by having you make the first contact, I put you in the position of being responsible if things went wrong. She should have respected that."

"I don't want to get her in trouble-" Jonas began.

"And you haven't. You told me what I needed to know," Kofield interrupted, "Nobody's perfect their first time out. Nobody. Hell, you've read the first mission file. You think that first trip to Abydos went according to plan? The important thing to do is recognize the mistakes, and avoid makin' 'em again."

"Yes sir," Jonas responded.

* * *

 _0600hrs_

The temple ruins went ignored. Instead, Jonas concentrated on translating the textbooks that Ayelas had let him borrow. Progress was slow, not only because of the complexity of trying to precisely translate scientific studies he didn't actually understand, but also because of the headache.

He suspected Marshal had one too. She had accepted Kofield's coffee, evidently to try and beat it back with caffeine, but her expression was still pinched and her clipped words were more irritable sounding than the day before. She was impatient with Jonas, and frequently asked him how far he'd gotten.

"It's going to take me awhile," Jonas had told her more times than he cared to count.

Finally, Reiner took pity on Jonas and said "Let him do his job, lieutenant. It'll go a lot faster if you stop interrupting every five minutes."

Jonas flashed the captain a grateful look, then refocused on the task while Marshal went off to sulk. Reiner ignored Jonas, and went off to talk quietly with Kofield before the two of them dialed the SGC for the scheduled update. Jonas wasn't called upon to participate, and he had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, he was best qualified to tell General Hammond what they'd found here. On the other, his translation work was already slow enough without having yet another interruption.

Like most people of his ilk, Jonas was typically oblivious to personal discomfort when he was involved in a project. He'd sat hunched over in the dirt for over five hours, his legs crossed in front of him to support the textbook and the notebook he was scribbling translations into. Unless and until he was stopped for some reason, he wouldn't feel his hand cramping, or the soreness of his muscles from having held this position for so long without moving. It had been suggested to him that he use a laptop instead of a notebook, but he found it only served to break his concentration. For some reason, switching from paper to screen messed with his thought process.

The way he'd kept notebooks around his office, it was evident that Dr. Jackson had the same problem. Dr. Jackson had transferred some notes to computer after he'd finished the thought process and come up with the correct answer, but most of his work was contained in the papers he'd left scattered around his office. Jonas was somewhat neater, and more inclined to put his work into a computer document than Jackson had been, but not only was switching back and forth mid-project detrimental, the weight and battery limitations of a laptop rendered it a massive inconvenience to carry off-world.

Jonas did manage to finally translate enough of the textbook to offer Marshal several pages. Even though she'd been impatient and hovering, she seemed surprised by the number of pages he had.

"It's a bit rough," Jonas admitted, "I used a lot of shorthand."

While working towards his first degree, Jonas had discovered shorthand. Previously, his father had been looking over his shoulder and insisted he form complete words and proper sentences. That meant he was very good at it, but shorthand had been a life saver. When he'd learned to write Earth English, Jonas had quickly picked up the shorthand commonly used at the SGC.

He'd learned it well, and Marshal quickly skimmed through what he'd written while he stretched, feeling the protest in his muscles for the first time in hours. Her eyes lit as she read, evidently finding the words more comprehensible and fascinating than Jonas had.

Then, abruptly, she turned to Kofield and said, "We have to get them to share their technology with us. We need to know how they learned some of this stuff. They're decades ahead of us, at least when it comes to understanding their sun, moons and the impact celestial bodies have on their planet. We need to know what they know."

It was one thing to initiate contact with a new people, talk to them and borrow a book or two offered freely. But a request for technology was a real diplomatic step, one which would require some kind of negotiation and exchange. Even with Jonas assigned to them, SG-7 was not the team for such negotiations.

"I guess I'll be calling the General back, then," Kofield remarked dryly.


	7. Return

_1000hrs_

Jonas was unceremoniously handed off to SG-9 along with Marshal after SG-9 came through the Stargate. Lt. Grogan was in charge of SG-9 and despite his youth seemed thoroughly qualified for the job. Though generally well disposed towards people (a requirement for a diplomatic team leader), Grogan didn't like Jonas, and he'd made that extremely clear upon their first meeting a few months back. Like many of the field operatives working for the Stargate Program who hadn't been there at the start, Grogan had been trained for this particular job by those who knew it best: SG-1.

Subsequently, Grogan's life had been saved during an off-world mission by SG-1. Understandably, he held them in high regard, including Dr. Jackson. Encountering Jonas in the SGC hallways shortly after the Kelownan made it onto SG-1, Grogan had said in as many words that he considered Jonas unworthy of the SG-1 shoulder patch. His opinion did not appear to have shifted.

"You had first contact," Grogan told Jonas as they left SG-7 behind to guard the Stargate, "That's why you're coming along. But you answer to me, and do as I say."

"I understand, Lieutenant," Jonas replied mildly.

Jonas knew it was going to be a long hike to Kiri.

When Jonas had first begun to wear SGC issue clothing, he hadn't understood the importance of boots. Though reasonably active back on Kelowna, he'd never wandered miles over rough terrain. It wasn't until he entered the field that he understood the support and protection provided by military boots. They weren't necessarily the most comfortable to just walk around in, but in the field they became your best friend in fairly short order.

It was a two hour drive to Kiri from the Stargate, and a much longer walk.

Grogan set a pace that, for Jonas, was grueling. The rest of the team didn't seem to find the pace excessive. Jonas wondered if it was a lack of military training or the by now debilitating pain behind his eyes and in the back of his head that made it difficult for him to keep up.

The lieutenant might have hated him, but the leave no man behind rule was nonetheless a part of him. If it had not been in him before, surely SG-1 would have drilled into him the requirement of loyalty. Though he didn't decrease the set pace, Grogan did pause now and then to wait for Jonas to catch up. He evidently had no intention of losing track of Jonas. Marshal, for her part, ignored him and kept up with the rest of the team. She was coming along in case SG-9 got access to the technology which interested her, because she was the one best equipped to understand it.

Other than making the necessary introductions, Jonas understood that he would have little to do with things from here on out. SG-9 had their own linguist, and he had no doubt that Grogan would assign her to translate for Marshal. He wouldn't make any more use of Jonas than absolutely necessary because he would be eager to rid himself of the Kelownan at the earliest opportunity.

On the one hand, Jonas was a little disappointed. He was eager to put his skills to use, to serve the Tau'ri as best he could. On the other, he was tired and that -coupled with the headache- slowed him down and increased the likelihood of his making a mistake, as if he wasn't already prone enough to failure.

Arriving on Guf'yn, SG-9 had donned sunglasses. Evidently the blue-tinged world was not much to their liking. Jonas wasn't all that fond of it either. Jonas' way of processing the world made it difficult to function in the light, because his eyes saw everything all at once, and his brain tried to process the entire picture. Jonas wasn't used to having to look at anything twice, but the light conditions made even the familiar look strange, so even one of the disturbingly similar pines would raise an internal red flag of 'what was that'? And checking to find the answer grew tiresome in short order. Jonas wondered if this was how "normal" people saw all the time. It seemed an impossible way to live.

Fortunately, he'd somewhat adjusted from yesterday. Had he tried to walk the trail to Kiri the day before, he'd have been stumbling before they'd made it half a mile. But he'd seen the terrain here in these light conditions before, only not from the ground.

Up ahead, he noticed that the rest of SG-9 was flagging after all, evidently more disoriented by the lighting than they'd let on. Or perhaps it was the persistent lack of wind that threw them for a loop. The stillness of the air was almost nerve-wracking, like the way the world seemed to hold its breath before dawn or a sudden storm, only here that breath was never actually released.

At least they had the reassurance that the trail was rougher on a vehicle than a person. Jonas estimated the vehicle had been traveling only two or three times their speed, and they could take some shortcuts through the trees that the vehicle couldn't. It was still a long haul, but nothing like if the vehicle had been traveling at paved road speeds.

* * *

 _1300hrs_

Jonas stumbled. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, but this time Grogan noticed and called a halt. His team looked at each other, whispering and shrugging. They knew he hadn't ordered a rest for them. And too, they knew full well Grogan didn't like Jonas. Most of them had only been part of the Stargate Program for the last six months or so, and had never met Dr. Jackson. Because they'd never met the man, they couldn't comprehend the impact he'd had on the people around him. But they _did_ know that their CO didn't like Jonas, and so they also didn't like him.

"Thanks," Jonas said to Grogan as the lieutenant brushed by him.

"I'm not carrying you back to the Stargate," Grogan replied in a low voice.

Jonas nodded his understanding and watched as Grogan checked the trail behind them. It was part of the training to check for tails, even in situations where they had no reason to suspect anyone was following them. Grogan's military training hadn't come from SG-1, but he had added habits of an SG-team member and leader into his repertoire. It was evidenced by the way he moved, and where he looked for danger.

Looking up ahead at the others, Jonas noticed that they appeared relieved to be taking a break after all, particularly Marshal. Maybe Grogan hadn't stopped just because Jonas was slowing them down.

Grogan didn't settle down after checking the trail and finding that no one had followed them. He paced restlessly, alert to every sound, keyed up all the way.

Once he'd been given access to them as a member of SG-1, Jonas had read all personnel files, including Lt. Grogan's. He remembered full well that, on one of his earliest off-world missions, Grogan had been the sole survivor of SG-9. The team had since been rebuilt, with Grogan assigned as its leader.

He wondered if the quiet of Guf'yn was reminding Grogan of that mission. Grogan's report afterward had said that things were quiet before the attack, extremely quiet. Jonas had been nowhere quieter than Guf'yn. He still hadn't heard any animal life, and if the wind blew at all he hadn't noticed it.

Grogan didn't settle down until they were ready to press on. Jonas decided to keep an eye on him. Open nervousness didn't tend to make negotiations go well. Grogan, as leader of a diplomatic SG-team, had to know that. Maybe he'd be more outwardly calm when they reached Kiri. Or maybe not.

* * *

 _1900hrs_

They'd had to take a few more breathers, and even stopped for lunch before they got Kiri in sight. A faster speed was certainly possible, but Grogan was smarter than to push as hard as he could. His team needed to be reasonably coherent if they were to talk to the Kiri Council. And that meant not running his team into the ground. Jonas was feeling worn-out, but had managed to hold his own nonetheless. For him, lunch was a distant memory. The exercise, coupled with not having eaten the day before was definitely telling on him. He found that he was glad he was nearly at the end of his usefulness, because he'd certainly reached the end of his rope. If he pushed any harder than he already had, he'd break and be no good to anybody. He didn't want to have to tell Grogan (or anyone) that he was done, but he would if he had to. He knew it was dangerous to keep illness, injury or weakness a secret in the field.

It had been Major Carter who fiercely drilled that into his head. She'd told him that confession of weakness wasn't being a quitter or a whiner. Dr. Jackson had always been the first to register a complaint, but he would nevertheless keep going, no matter how much it hurt. Knowing he was hurt allowed the team to compensate, to work around, to ask less of him, or to put him in a position where injury or illness made less of an impact on the mission. But they couldn't do any of that if they didn't know, and a team mate folding under unexpectedly was the worst thing that could happen in the field.

" _I don't care if it's just a hangnail, you tell us about it,"_ Carter had said.

Jonas took her meaning, but refused to complain about the small stuff. So long as he wasn't likely to hinder or endanger the team, they didn't need to hear about his problems.

The day before, Jonas and Marshal had entered the city in a vehicle, and had thus not attracted much notice. Walking through the giant archway where a gate used to be was another matter entirely. The people of Kiri were taller than they were, paler, and their eyes looked different, as did their apparel.

As a diplomatic gesture, Grogan halted his team just inside the gate, near the wall and off the road. They didn't have long to wait before the Enforcers showed up, one of whom Jonas recognized from the day before. The Enforcer's name-tag, like all text in Kiri, was in Goa'uld. His name was Aniyuv, and it was evident that he recognized Jonas and Lt. Marshal from the day before as well.

"You do not have permission to be here," Aniyuv said.

"We know," Jonas answered, holding his hands up and away from his body to show he wasn't here to be threatening, "We would have spoken to your Council and asked permission to enter Kiri first, but we didn't have any way to contact them."

"We actually came specifically to talk to them," Grogan put in.

Jonas had to give Grogan and his team credit. The Enforcers had moved in to surround them with weapons drawn, but the team did not respond in kind. It had to go against every survival instinct they had to keep their hands away from their weapons, but they did.

While noting this, Jonas noticed something else. He hadn't gotten a good look at the sidearms the Enforcers were carrying until now. They looked almost like a hybrid between a zat'nik'tel and a pistol, but there was a very particular detail Jonas found interesting. At the base of the weapon, where the magazine for an M9 was put in, Jonas noticed a red glow.

Aniyuv turned slightly and addressed one of the Enforcers next to him in a whisper. The man nodded curtly and walked away from the scene of confrontation, to one of the vehicles the Enforcers had arrived in. The Enforcer spoke into a radio, then listened, then spoke again. He nodded to Aniyuv.

"You are to come with us," Aniyuv said to the SG-team, and he gestured towards the vehicle with the muzzle of his weapon.

After the extremely long walk they'd just had, the distance from gate to the Community Negotiation and Discussion Office shouldn't have seemed like anything. But even Grogan seemed relieved to be driven the last leg of the journey instead of walking it. He seemed only moderately perturbed to be getting into a vehicle with someone holding a gun on him, perhaps because he had noticed that the Enforcers had made no attempt to disarm him or anyone on his team. The Enforcers were being very polite, considering the potentially dangerous situation they were in.

On Earth as well as Kelowna, disarming potential threats was standard operating procedure. You didn't think about it, didn't wonder if maybe this time maybe you didn't need to, you just did it. Jonas hadn't been there, but he'd been given to understand that SG-1 caused a bit of a ruckus when they first met the Kelownans because they refused to be disarmed. Jonas now knew that was because SG-teams did not relinquish their weapons unless there was no alternative. It might've been an Air Force rule, but Jonas knew that Colonel O'Neill put special emphasis on it when training personnel for the Stargate Program. Dr. Jackson had tempered that with training exercises which cautioned them not to draw their weapons all the time. Just because you could, didn't mean you should. SG-1's meeting with Kelowna would have gone very differently if they'd held security personnel at gunpoint at the first unfriendly advance.

"They're carrying intars," Jonas whispered to Grogan as the team moved to climb into the Enforcer vehicles, which were quite a bit larger than what Jonas and Marshal had ridden in the day before.

Grogan twitched and looked sharply at the Enforcer nearest to him. He then looked back at Jonas, raising an eyebrow. Jonas just shrugged. He didn't know for sure what it meant, it had merely been an observation, one he felt that Grogan needed to know about.

It had taken Jonas awhile, but he had eventually figured out that he noticed things nobody else did. Seeing everything and forgetting nothing was a skill unique to him, and it was one that he could put to good use. Until he'd seen Grogan react, Jonas hadn't known for certain that the leader of SG-9 hadn't noticed the intars. Now he knew. If the almost obsessively alert Grogan had missed it, it was a safe bet the others had too. Jonas wondered what else he'd seen that they had not.


	8. Building a Bridge

The Enforcers led Jack and the others to a waiting room in the CN&D Office building, where they found SG-9 already present. When Jack and the others stepped through the door into the room, they finally lost their entourage of Enforcers, who waited outside. Jack liked nothing about the waiting room, least of all the presence of a Kirian woman, whom he guessed was probably Ayelas.

Grogan didn't notice them come in, because he was kneeling next to the couch. Lt. Marshal was lying on the couch, a bandage on the side of her head.

"Where are we?" Jack demanded of Grogan, who startled and stood up.

"Colonel!" he exclaimed, then regained his composure enough to answer the question, "We're in the same place we were hours ago. The Kirian Council knows something they're not telling us, but we haven't had any luck finding out what that is."

"Marshal?" Kofield asked.

"Regained consciousness about an hour ago, but she's been in and out since," Grogan said.

"Jonas?" Jack inquired, without much hope.

Grogan shook his head, "The Council won't let us look for him. Community Director Whilbarr says we'll be the first to know if any Enforcers find him. They found Marshal and brought her here."

While Grogan had been talking, Jack was taking in his appearance, and that of his team. Marshal was the only one seriously injured, but the rest of them were definitely showing some wear.

"How did the sunglasses work out?" Jack asked, noticing that Grogan no longer had his on.

Dr. Fraser had suggested that sunglasses might reduce the effects of the light. Grogan and his team had been here for well over a day now. Before Grogan could answer, Marshal stirred. Her eyes opened and she looked around groggily. It was obvious when her memory clicked into place.

"Quinn!" she cried, trying to sit up and looking around wildly.

"Easy, Marshal," Grogan, still beside her, gently prevented her from sitting up, "You've got a mild concussion at least."

"Where's Quinn?" Marshal demanded.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Jack said, "Seeing as you were the last person to see him."

Marshal stared at Jack in silence for a long few seconds. Finally, she stopped resisting Grogan and lay back on the couch with a weary sigh.

"I don't know where he is," she said.

"Do you remember what happened?" Carter asked gently.

"I remember..." Marshal's brow furrowed as though she wasn't entirely certain what she remembered, "I remember Quinn and I were in Ayelas' living room. He was working on translations. And then..." she trailed off, then sighed in frustration, "I'm not sure."

"Give it a minute," Carter suggested, "What _do_ you remember?"

Marshal closed her eyes and took a breath, "I remember the Council spent hours talking to Lt. Grogan. We drank more of that awful Percolate. Then the Council deliberated for awhile, and eventually they decided to let us stay with Ayelas for the night. It was too late for anything else. The plan was to reconvene in the morning. All any of us wanted to do by then was sleep..."

Marshal fell silent without seeming to realize it. Jack didn't press her, because he could tell she was thinking, remembering. Suddenly she spoke again, but she didn't say what he expected.

"Dear God," she gasped, then looked sharply at Jack, "Colonel, he saved my life."

"What?" Jack asked.

"Quinn... when they came for us. Colonel... he's missing because of _me_."

"When who came for you?" Carter spoke now, "Who is they?"

Marshal stared at her, glassy eyed, and did not answer.

"That's it," Jack growled, "We're done with this."

"Sir?" Carter asked.

"We've played by their rules long enough," Jack elaborated, "It's time they played by ours."

* * *

 _Day 3, 0000hrs_

Sleep was not possible for Jonas.

There'd been no opportunity to eat until after the Council was let out for the night, but by then sleep was the only thing the team had on their minds. It was all Jonas wanted too, but his headache had gotten worse, and now his muscles were also protesting the unwonted exercise and his stomach was complaining about being underfed.

Nonetheless, he lay quietly on his bedroll, listening to SG-9 sleep. The guest room in Ayelas' home was cramped for six people and their gear, but Jonas felt comforted by the nearness of the team.

After a number of hours he didn't bother to count, Jonas decided to get up and try to finish translating the textbook he'd been working on yesterday morning. It had become clear in the Council chambers that Jonas' role in the diplomatic arena was concluded.

However, he still had several books to translate for Marshal. He figured he might as well do that.

Picking up bedroll and pack, Jonas left the bedroom in favor of the living room.

Jonas didn't know if most homes in Kiri looked the same, or if Ayelas particularly liked white. In the moonlight streaming through the window between open translucent curtains, everything seemed to glow. Aside from being so white it seemed to have light of its own, Ayelas' living room was fairly standard. Couch, chairs, end tables, coffee table, rug, bookshelf and so on. Though Jonas knew the walls of the living room were beige, the night lighting had turned them a creamy white.

Rather than turn on a light, Jonas simply went to the chair nearest the window and sat down, using the moonlight to read. To his surprise, he felt a slight breeze. Though Guf'yn was fairly cool at night, and warm during the day, Jonas hadn't consciously noticed any wind of any kind until now. The main reason he noticed now was that the breeze ruffled the thin curtains and they rustled quietly.

It was light enough to read, but Jonas scanned the same paragraph five or six times without actually absorbing any of its content, much less translating it into English. His brain was in overdrive, which was why he couldn't sleep, but he was too tired now to focus either. Setting the book down, Jonas leaned back in the chair slightly to look out the window at the building across the street.

Ayelas didn't have her own house, rather her home was an apartment on the first floor of one of several seemingly identical beige buildings. The building across the street was the same as the one Jonas was in, though he couldn't get a look at the rooms beyond the windows because there were no lights on inside of them, so he couldn't tell if they were all the same inside or not.

Something about the rigid sameness of Kiri unnerved him.

"You're up early," the sound of Ayelas' voice startled him; he hadn't heard her come in.

Like her furniture, Ayelas seemed to glow in the moonlight. When she moved, the sheer robe she had over her nightclothes fluttered in the breeze. Somehow, in his military fatigues and combat boots, Jonas felt suddenly very out of place in this setting. He tried to ignore that, telling himself he was wearing the uniform of the SGC, and was therefore properly dressed. But he couldn't stifle the self-consciousness.

He stood up and smiled ruefully, "Actually I couldn't sleep. So I decided to try and get the rest of this translation done for Lieutenant Marshal. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"I never sleep more than an hour past first moonset," Ayelas said, "In fact, I usually take a walk for exercise around this time. Would you like to join me?"

Jonas hesitated. His first instinct was to say yes. Building goodwill with the public was a part of his job description now, and had been on Kelowna as well. Being open and friendly and likable was an important element of future cooperation. It was unclear what influence, if any, Ayelas had with her government, but there could be no harm in gaining her favor, or in talking to her about her people and how her world functioned. Building a bridge.

But Jonas also knew it could be hazardous to go anywhere alone, particularly on a new world, with someone he'd only just met. Even if nothing happened, Grogan would probably be upset with him, and it would eventually get back to Colonel O'Neill, who always seemed to have an eye out for reasons not to trust Jonas or place any faith in him.

But Jonas couldn't do his job if he spent all his time worrying about what other people thought and said. He already wasn't getting any work done, and a walk outside might help clear his head so he could either work or sleep. He was also dying to get some answers about Kiri. The buildings, the wall, the written language. He wanted to know about Kiri now, and a hundred years ago. Ayelas, he knew, could answer most of the questions he had, if not all of them.

 _You've got your radio. If Grogan wakes up and wants to know where you are, he can call,_ Jonas was too sleep deprived and his head hurt too much for him to recognize his own recklessness and shaky logic.

"I'd love to," Jonas said in answer to Ayelas, "I'm very interested in seeing more of your city."

Ayelas smiled, and he realized it was probably the first true smile he'd seen on her, because it changed the way her whole face looked. She'd seemed to glow before, but a true smile made her positively radiant. He returned her smile, realizing that he had the opportunity to do more than merely help further relations with the SGC and government of Kiri. He had the chance to make a friend.

* * *

 _0045hrs_

A few minutes later, Ayelas was dressed and leading Jonas through the streets of Kiri.

At this time of day, the streets of Kiri were quiet, with few vehicles and almost no pedestrians. The inactivity made it all the more obvious to Jonas just how alike all the buildings were, but he decided not to remark on it for the moment. It was generally a bad move to remark on how strange even the most basic aspects of another culture were when you were first developing relations.

He'd been right in his assessment of her. Now past the initial shock of meeting and away from the government offices, Ayelas was clearly as curious about Earth as Jonas was about Guf'yn. She was smart and funny, and her fields of interest and expertise overlapped with Jonas'. Of course, there was a lot they couldn't talk about, or shouldn't discuss, but Ayelas seemed to know as much about the nature of diplomacy as Jonas did, and so avoided asking uncomfortable questions. If she did stumble onto one that Jonas couldn't answer, she understood when he said so.

"You're very good, you know," Ayelas said eventually, seemingly prompted by nothing.

"I am?" Jonas asked, not quite sure what she meant.

"Yes," Ayelas said, "There are not many who, having survived a meeting with the Council, would submit to enduring it a second day in a row."

"I didn't have much to do with it yesterday," Jonas said, "I only made introductions."

"And then presumably had to sit still and quiet for hours while the most boring people in my city monologued."

"There was an amount of that, yes," Jonas said, nodding.

"It's always easiest to be the speaker," Ayelas told him, "At least for me. I like having a role in the game, not just being a spectator. N&D isn't a spectator's sport."

"Knowing what to say can be difficult though," Jonas observed, "Especially when dealing with a culture you know nothing about."

"Mercifully, I have never been placed in that position," Ayelas said, "I suppose for a star traveler, that's just part of the job."

"Actually I've only been to a few worlds, rarely making initial contact," Jonas confessed, "I became part of the Stargate Program a short time ago."

"But the game of politics is not new to you," Ayelas said matter-of-factly.

"No," Jonas admitted, "Before coming to the SGC, I was one of the top advisers to the leader of my country," he omitted the formal titles, and also the detail that his country was not on Earth.

"Funny," Ayelas said, "You don't strike me as a professional kiss up."

Jonas tried not to laugh and said, "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should," Ayelas told him, "Only the best favor curriers can do it without anyone noticing."

Jonas tried not to respond too much to the flattery, and instead decided to change the focus from himself, "You're pretty good at getting the result you want from meetings, yourself."

"I have to be, in my line of work," Ayelas said, "The only way to do anything significant as a Kirian is to be well educated and good at politics. Otherwise my choices were limited to tree trimming and working as a server at a Percolatery. And I barely have enough balance to remain upright, forget a bunch of mugs full of steaming liquid on a tray."

"I take it the Kirian government is pretty controlling?" Jonas inquired.

"No more than the Jinaz and Riktari," at Jonas' questioning look, Ayelas clarified, "Those are the two cities closest to Kiri. You have to go through one of them to get to the rest of the civilized world," she paused then, and seemed to shift subjects again, "You know this city has another name?"

"Really?" Jonas prompted.

"The Last City, or City at the Edge. As you may have noticed, civilization comes to a screeching halt beyond Kiri's walls. There's nothing beyond us but the Chappa'ai, your Stargate."

"You mentioned tree trimming," Jonas said, "You wouldn't happen to mean the forest between Kiri and the Stargate, would you?"

"What other trees are there?" Ayelas inquired, then laughed without much humor, "Long ago, trees were planted according to the will of the gods, back when we believed in such things. Now it's the will of the government, which sometimes feels like the same thing."

"One of my professors used to say that people seek positions of power because they secretly want to be worshiped, and paperwork is their version of sacrificial offerings, taking your time and energy instead of your best livestock and crops," Jonas told her.

"Sounds like a wise man," Ayelas remarked.

"And a very bitter one," Jonas said, "I had a lot of arguments with him. I believed that some people sought power so that they could help their people, provide protection and services that they couldn't have if they didn't hold that seat or power."

"Believed, past tense?" Ayelas queried.

Jonas realized he hadn't caught himself when he should have. He sighed.

"I joined the Stargate Program because I thought it was the best way to help my people. I realized that the leaders of my country... did not have the pure motivations I wanted to believe they had. A very wise man taught me that there was more out here than what the people in my government were willing to consider. And that there was another way to pursue a better, safer life for my people."

Ayelas said nothing, but he saw in her eyes that she heard the regret in his voice. She did not ask, they did not know each other well enough for her to pressure him for further details. But she clearly heard the pain in his voice, and in her eyes there was an understanding and sympathy.

He smiled for her then, not one of his forced ones, but one acknowledging that he knew she understood. Not only did she understand, she knew that he couldn't talk about it more than he had. He was glad to have found a friend here, especially when he'd brought none with him.

They had reached the building Jonas had noticed on his first visit because of its great height. He now realized that it was also positioned at the center of the city, and that every street and building seemed to have been built around it. Strangely, unlike most of the office buildings, it bore no marking or identification symbol of any kind. At least, not on the side they were approaching, which seemed to be the front. He decided to ask why, as much to change the subject as satisfy his curiosity.

"I'm curious," Jonas said, "I noticed this building the first time I came here. What's it for?"

To his surprise, Ayelas stopped walking. She stood and looked up at one of the higher floors of the building, a look of profound displeasure on her face. She took a deep breath, seeming to decide whether or not she should answer. Her answer, when it came, was cryptic, which was not in line with how she had behaved ever since she and Jonas had met.

"Worshipers are supposed to be beneath their god."

As Ayelas had dismissed the idea of a deity earlier, but compared the will of her government with that of a god, Jonas was led to guess that this was some sort of government building, though he couldn't begin to guess what it was for. From what he'd gathered, the Kirian Council pretty much ran everything, and they inhabited the Negotiation and Discussion Office, several blocks south of here.

He started to ask Ayelas if she could elaborate, but never got the chance.

"Quinn, where the hell are you?" Jonas jumped slightly at the sound of Grogan's voice in his radio.

He and Ayelas exchanged an amused look, then Ayelas said, "I guess we should be getting back."

"I guess so," Jonas echoed.

They turned to head back, but even as he keyed his radio to answer Grogan, Jonas found himself glancing back at the central building. There was a mystery here, he knew it. He didn't understand why exactly, but something about what Ayelas had said, and the way the building seemed to loom over all the others... well, it made him uneasy.


	9. Flashpoint

_1000hrs_

Ayelas had served a meal she called cufnik. Jonas wasn't sure what ingredients went into it, but it came out looking like porridge. It was light brown, goopy and had that weird cooked oats texture Jonas was well familiar with. The flavor was something else again. It seemed like she'd thrown all the nutrients needed into a bowl, mix it up with water and then cooked it until it turned into soup. The end result wasn't at all appealing, but nobody complained. Conversation revealed that Guf'yn people ate one meal a day, and it was always cufnik. Grogan theorized the Guf'yn had evolved differently from the people of Earth, and were designed to cope with one meal per day. Jonas had a different theory (which he kept to himself). The theory was that they didn't like their food either, and had to get hungry enough to face another bowl or plate of Guf'yn porridge.

After eating and reporting in to Kofield's team back at the Stargate, SG-9 had gone out to the Negotiation and Discussion Office. Marshal had stayed at Ayelas' place to more thoroughly look over what Jonas had translated. Actually, she seemed to be fending off the equivalent of a hangover. It was just as well, Jonas wasn't getting far on his translating work, for much the same reason.

Jonas didn't even realize he'd dozed off until the first explosion catapulted him back into wakefulness.

"What the hell was that!?" Marshal shouted, ducking as the shock-wave made the building shudder, causing bits of dust to rain down from the ceiling.

It was not the first time Jonas had awakened to a world crumbling in the after effects of a bomb. In fact, much of his early life had been marked by violence happening around him. Being taught to drop to the floor and cover his head whenever he heard a gunshot or if an explosion was imminent had been drilled into him thoroughly, and he had been unable to even consider ignoring this early teaching when the incident with the Naquadria bomb occurred. The sound of bombs exploding, gunfire outside his bedroom window, all of that was far back in his past, but his body had not forgotten.

Even before he was really awake and aware, Jonas had launched from his chair, curled up on the floor, putting his hands up to protect the back of his neck. He shook the posture off almost as quickly, fighting against the old habits, reminding himself that he belonged to SG-1 now. He was no longer a child, or an adviser to a diplomat; he was a soldier in the field. A single focal point galvanized him into action, one word that in this instant had more significance than any others.

 _Move._

A secondary explosion followed, this one closer. The walls shook, small fragments of ceiling shattered and fell. Plaster and bits of stone rained down as Jonas reached Marshal's side.

"We need to get out," Jonas shouted over the din, "This whole place could come down."

Marshal nodded her agreement and began to lead the way towards the door. They'd almost made it when the street outside erupted into flames. Marshal recognized the impending explosion first and reeled back so abruptly that she knocked into Jonas.

The roar was deafening, the world seemed to be shaking apart. Jonas couldn't see, he couldn't hear, and he couldn't breathe. The dust was thick, the explosion had deafened him and all he could hear was a high ringing. He stumbled and fell. He had no concept of what was happening in that instant, all reason had been obliterated as the world caved in. Instinctively he rolled up into a ball on the floor as debris crashed down on him. A steel beam, formerly a concealed ceiling support, came down. It struck him hard on the left shoulder. Rather than block out some of the input as it became overwhelmed, Jonas' mind tried to keep functioning, consciously registering the agony at the moment of impact.

Jonas was pretty sure he screamed, but he couldn't be sure because he couldn't hear, his throat was raw from the dust in the air, and he'd already been shouting for Marshal, whom he had lost all track of. He didn't know why he was calling for Marshal. She couldn't hear him, nor could he hear her.

Even though this was no time for it, Jonas' mind couldn't focus itself entirely upon the here and now. Always his active brain was wondering, figuring, questioning, guessing. And now it was asking who, why and how questions. Who was doing this? Why? And how? Was the attack actually directed at the Tau'ri as it seemed to be from here, or was the entire city of Kiri under attack? Was the attack from people on the planet? Or was there an invasion? Ships in orbit? Passing planes? Or planted explosives timed to go off? It didn't matter now, but Jonas couldn't stop the flood of questions, he couldn't shut them out.

It was one thing to be paralyzed by fear, quite another to be rendered immobile by the sheer number of directions your mind was trying to go all at once. Jonas knew he had to get his mind under control, but that there was no time. He forced himself to move even through the haze of confusion and pain.

His left arm had gone numb from the shoulder down, the ringing in his ears subsided into a dull roar as he dug and crawled his way out from under the debris. He hadn't been too badly pinned. He got up, looking around, trying to find Marshal. But it was dark, the outer wall had either fallen or been buried. Between the grime sticking his eyelashes together, the dirt in the air and the dimness, Jonas could see nothing. He fumbled blindly, tripped on a broken chunk of stone and fell.

He shook his head, struggling back up as electric bolts of pain shot up and down his spine. Though he put it in the same place every time he geared up, Jonas suddenly couldn't remember where his penlight was. Even when he found which pocket it was in, it didn't do any good. He didn't know if fear or shock was making him shake, but he was trembling badly and couldn't grasp it.

"Lieutenant Marshal!" Jonas tried to call, but he choked on the dust and he didn't know if he'd managed to make a sound or not.

However, he did hear coughing. It was faint, but he followed the sound across the ruins of Ayelas' living room until he located Marshal, half-buried under debris. Jonas quickly pulled chunks of stone and plaster off her and then examined her. He could barely see, but his fingers ran along the length of her bones, searching for breaks. The only thing he found was a wet spot on the side of her forehead.

Blood.

His training in first aid told him not to move an injured person since he might hurt them worse or even kill them. Whether or not he could feel broken bones or open wounds, there could be internal damage.

A low rumble signaled that the building was buckling. Jonas threw himself over Marshal's body, flinching as bits of broken rock struck him, and stone reduced to sand hissed from the ceiling. The building moaned, its frame struggling under the shifting weight and loss of supports.

" _If you don't move her, she's dead anyway,"_ It might have been his field training kicking in, but to Jonas it was the voice of Colonel O'Neill, disapproving of his hesitation and uncertainty.

Jonas tried to remember how you were supposed to carry an unconscious and possibly badly wounded person. Something about best weight distribution, making it easier to move and balance while carrying.

" _Stop panicking,"_ O'Neill's voice told him, _"The point of doing it again and again is so that when the time comes, you just do it. Don't think about it. Do it. Get the job done, Jonas."_

Jonas wasn't sure afterward what he'd done. The time between when he knelt to examine Marshal and when he stood with her slung across his shoulders, awkwardly trying to hold onto her right wrist with his right hand, the arm of which was looped around her leg was a complete mental white out.

Once he had her, he still had to find a way out. The front door was a lost cause, but he remembered vaguely that there was a back door to the place. He hoped the way wasn't blocked.

It would have been difficult enough to make his way out without carrying someone. The path was littered with broken furniture, crumbled bits of ceiling, fallen in sections of wall and other, less identifiable things. Metal support beams stuck out of the mess like spikes waiting to impale him if he staggered into them, exposed electrical wiring crackled, snapped and hissed menacingly from the shadows. Jonas had no concept of how long it took him to make his way through.

Because he couldn't see where he was going, Jonas made full use of his visual memory. How far was he from the exit? How many turns down hallways? Were there any doors? Unfortunately, not only had the terrain changed considerably in the last few minutes, he didn't have a perfect blueprint in his mind.

He'd seen the apartment building from the outside, and only theorized that one door at the end of the hall beyond the master bedroom was a back exit and not a closet. But was it an exit from the building itself, or only the apartment in which Ayelas lived? He didn't know for sure.

It felt like it was sudden, but also as if it had taken a lifetime, but whichever it was Jonas was relieved to finally see the door ahead. He had regained some use of his left arm, but the door didn't open when he tried the handle. He had to put Marshal down. He didn't know if there was a locking mechanism he'd failed to note. It was hard enough to see the door.

He tried to open it again, leaning his weight into the door. The ceiling continued to crumble overhead, the building cried out like a dying beast. There was no time to look for a locking mechanism. Jonas moved a step back and then slammed into the door with his right shoulder while pulling the latch. The door rattled, but held. Jonas slammed into it again, this time as hard as he was able. The door popped open unexpectedly, and Jonas fell headlong into a wide hallway. It had formerly been one of those impersonal hallways one found in hospitals and government installations, without décor and with the smoothest polished stone floor. Now it was just another debris field to wade through.

Jonas stumbled back to where he'd dropped Marshal. His head was spinning, no longer even able to ask questions. His mind was shutting down, finally shutting out everything but the moment. He had been alarmed when the first explosion rocked the building, terrified an instant later. Now his brain had shut down any emotion. His emotions were too powerful and chaotic, so he shut them out. He clung to his orders, even if they came in the form of a voice in his head, memories of past training sessions.

" _Stop thinking about it so much. Just do it. And keep doing it until you finish the job. Do it again. Do it until you get it right. Do it again. Keep going. Again. Keep at it. Do it again,"_ How many times had Colonel O'Neill said those words when he had Jonas run an obstacle course or field strip his weapon before putting it back together? A hundred? A thousand?

Jonas didn't have the strength to lift Marshal anymore. He'd put her down with her head and shoulders nearest the door. He grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her, hoping she wasn't caught on anything. He didn't even want to think about what sharp objects he was dragging her over, he just hoped the jacket she was wearing was enough to protect her.

The hallway had less dust in it, and outside light was filtering in from somewhere. It was the first time Jonas had really been able to see Marshal since the bombing started. The entire left side of her face was black with blood. It had soaked into her jacket and hair. Her blood was probably all over Jonas. He was too exhausted at this point to wonder how much blood was enough to be seriously worried about.

Looking around, Jonas judged which direction the light source was coming from and decided to go that way. Hopefully there was a door or window. Any sort of exit was fine with him at this point.

Jonas didn't know how much time had passed. His mind had blanked out several times. He was coughing badly, and pain filled every part of his being, but he was no longer aware of it. He was only aware of the next step, the next inch, the next muscle he had to manipulate in order to move towards the exit and drag Marshal with him. He had energy for nothing else.

What he eventually reached was a fallen section of outer wall. It led to an alleyway. He didn't stop, didn't consider, just kept going. Kept going until they were out in the alley.

Then, and only then, did he stop to consider calling for help on the radio. He was wearing his vest, and the radio was strapped to it, just as it was supposed to be.

It was then that Jonas realized he was coughing, gasping for air. He couldn't get enough breath to speak with. He sank to his knees in the midst of the chaos, coughing helplessly, his ears ringing. Through the smoke and the dust he'd found outside, he saw that the streets were eerily empty. It was as if he and Marshal were the last people in the world. He had the thought to just give up. He couldn't move anymore. He couldn't help Marshal anymore. He'd gotten her out, and that was as far as he could go.

" _Keep going. Finish the job. Do it, Jonas. Do it again. Do it until you get it right. Keep going."_

How many times during training had Teal'c punched him in the face and knocked him down? How many times had he thought he couldn't get up again? How many times had he been certain that, this time, the Jaffa had broken him? How many times had he gritted his teeth, forced himself to feign enthusiasm, gotten up and asked for more? He had done that, why couldn't he do this?

On the ground beside him, Marshal moaned and shifted. She was still alive. He had an obligation to make sure she stayed that way. He had to try the radio again.

He fumbled for the talk button, almost completely numb and very uncoordinated. He tried to clear his lungs to speak. But before he managed to find his voice, he saw something through the smoke. Someone was on the street after all. But their movement was not reassuring. Not fearful or uncertain, but bold, as if he knew what had happened. The man turned to look down the alley. His eyes met Jonas', and he started into the alley, weapon drawn.

Marshal started to mumble, trying to form words. The man hadn't seen her yet.

"Shh," Jonas told her, putting a hand over her mouth for a moment, "Stay quiet."

He was shaking, but he didn't notice. He had to use the wall to help himself stand up. He was so dizzy he could barely walk. But he carefully moved away from Marshal, climbing painfully over the fallen section of wall. The man had seen only him, because the broken stone blocked the view of the ground. Jonas had been sitting up, but Marshal was prone and thus rendered invisible.

"Who are you?" Jonas asked, carefully pushing off the wall and then holding his hands away from his body in a gesture of either peace or surrender, he didn't care which, "What's happening?"

Instead of answering, the man closed the gap between them and swung his weapon at Jonas' head. Jonas ducked, dropped and then tried to get back to his feet, ignoring the blinding agony that filled him as his left arm took his weight. The back end of the weapon swung down, this time finding its mark across the side of his head, knocking him flat, sending stars to explode in his vision and electric jolts to scramble his brain. Darkness closed in around him.


	10. Demands

**Part 2: Present**

" _I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen..."_

* * *

Jack had, with the support of his own team, along with SG-7 and SG-9, stormed the Council room.

"What is the meaning of this?!" a tall man, presumably Community Director Whilbarr, demanded.

"Your Enforcers didn't let us in when we asked nicely," Jack replied.

"If you think there is anything to gain from killing us-" Whilbarr began, but Jack interrupted.

"Don't flatter yourself," Jack snapped, "We're not interested in _you_. Believe it or not, this is a courtesy call. The man who's missing, Jonas Quinn? He's part of my team, and I'm here to look for him."

"I assure you, Kiri's Enforcers are doing-"

Jack interrupted again, and enjoyed it. It wasn't often he got to use his preferred method of diplomacy.

"We're not here to get in the way of your investigation," Jack said, "But we're not gonna sit on our hands with a missing man out there. That isn't how we operate. Someone took a member of my team, and I want him back."

" _Jack..."_ he could almost hear Daniel's soft voiced warning, but chose to ignore it.

"Now, we _are_ going to go to the last place he was seen. And we _are_ going to do an investigation of our own. Your choice is how difficult you want to make this."

Jack was bluffing. Even if he had every SG-team at his disposal right now (which he didn't), he couldn't hope to take an entire city, especially not without more bloodshed than he was willing to inflict. But he was betting that Whilbarr didn't know that, or that the Council didn't really want to resort to violence over this.

" _Jack,"_ Daniel voice's in his mind was saying, _"This is their city, and their rules. If you do this, you ruin any chance of them becoming our allies. Remember, they didn't do this. Someone attacked them, and we got caught in the middle. You can't take your anger out on them."_

But Jack didn't give a damn right now. He'd lost one of his team, his best friend in fact. He was not ready to lose another, even if that other was Jonas, whom he wasn't overly fond of.

Besides, Grogan had been at the diplomatic solution angle for probably around twenty hours now, and hadn't managed to make the slightest dent. The Kirian government wasn't going to listen to reason. Far as Jack was concerned, preventing Grogan's team from visiting the scene of the bombing and searching the surrounding area for signs of the missing person was a hostile act.

Daniel would have understood that, even if his ghost didn't.

Whilbarr glared at Jack, outrage plain on his face.

"You are no better than the Jinaz," this remark came not from him, but an Enforcer Teal'c had pinned to the wall, "You say you come in peace, but the first time things do not go your way, you resort to violence. In all likelihood, it is they who bombed our city and took your man."

Jack twitched, then turned towards the Enforcer, and recognized him from earlier. The man was short for a Kirian, only an inch or two taller than Teal'c. In other circumstances, Jack might've tried to get along with him. Unlike the members of the Council, the Enforcer did not seem cowed by the weapons the SG-teams were carrying. Easily overpowered by Teal'c, he nonetheless looked fierce, ready to fight again at the slightest opportunity. Here was a man who understood something other than just talk. But what most interested Jack was not what the Enforcer looked like, but what he had said.

"And why, pray tell, would the Jinaz want Jonas?" Jack inquired, "And who the hell are the Jinaz?"

"They are a violent people, who believe Kiri has held too much power for too long," Whilbarr spoke now, "Kiri is the most powerful city and government on our planet. We have achieved a state of order through judicial methods. Our economy flourishes, and our people thrive. The Jinaz would have us control our populace with martial law."

"And what would they want with Jonas?" Jack repeated his earlier question.

"They likely have spies in our city. The Jinaz have long used terrorist means to try and force us to see things their way. Likely they believe they can gain weapons and technology from you which would aid them in overthrowing the Kirian government."

"Jonas can't give them anything," Carter said, "Not even if he wanted to."

"He can give them the address to your world," Whilbarr pointed out.

"That wouldn't do them any good," Carter said, "We have a protective barrier called an 'iris'. Even if Jonas gave them our address and they gated to Earth, they would hit it and kill themselves."

"They do not know that," Whilbarr pointed out.

"That's stupid," Jack broke in, "Only idiots would try to invade a militarily superior planet."

Jack noticed that Carter made a face, and Teal'c looked over his shoulder at him. They knew full well that SG-1 had done just that on more than one occasion. The Goa'uld always had them outmatched in both manpower and firepower. They had always survived such encounters by the skin of their teeth, with a combination of tactics, determination and sheer luck.

"We do not know for certain that it was the Jinaz," Whilbarr said, "It could as easily have been the Riktari."

"The who?" Jack asked.

"Riktari is the other city nearby. They also do not appreciate the peace that Kirian law has brought to Guf'yn."

"It is not their way to use explosives," the Enforcer spoke up, disdain in his voice, "Their way is to make promises they do not intend to keep, and to propose arrangements they have no intention of agreeing to. They are liars, and thieves, but if there is dirty work to be done they trick someone into doing it for them, or else pay them off."

"And then there's you guys," Jack said, "Maybe you weren't satisfied with the answers you were getting."

" _Jack..."_ Daniel's voice warned.

"Maybe you staged the whole thing, and that's why you don't want to let us look into it."

" _Jack!"_

The insult finally seemed to break Whilbarr's resolve. His face darkened, and it took him several attempts to get himself under control enough to speak in a level tone.

"Put away your weapons," Whilbarr said stiffly, "And Aniyuv will show you to the scene of the attack."

"Director!" the Enforcer protested, and Jack realized he must be Aniyuv.

"You will show them, Aniyuv. And tell them what you and your men have discovered thus far," Whilbarr glared angrily at Jack, but spoke mildly, "We will prove that the Kirian have nothing to hide."

* * *

Sam wasn't sure about Colonel O'Neill's tactics this time, but she was as eager to actually do something as he was. She hated that it had taken so long to get to Kiri. The whole way here, she'd been plagued by visions of Jonas lost, hurt or lying dead somewhere and nobody knowing it. But Marshal seemed to think that Jonas had actually been captured, taken away by someone. Sam wished Marshal had been able to at least give a clue as to who that had been. But Marshal probably didn't know them by name, and had lost consciousness again before she was able to provide a description.

"Kofield, you and your team head back to the 'Gate with Marshal," O'Neill said.

"With respect, sir," Kofield replied, "No way."

"Come again?" O'Neill snapped, clearly irritated.

"I came here with four people: Reiner, Lauder, Marshal and Quinn." Kofield said, then added, "Quinn may be on your team, but I was responsible for him from the moment I stepped through the 'Gate with him. And I'm not leaving this rock until I get him back for you."

"Marshal needs medical attention," O'Neill told him.

"Reiner can handle getting her and the others back to the 'Gate," Kofield pointed out.

"Major-" O'Neill began, but Kofield interrupted him.

"I'm not going, sir. You can do whatever you want to me when we get back for disobeying orders, but I'm staying right here on Guf'yn until we find Jonas Quinn."

Jack glanced at Grogan, who merely said, "If I'd kept a closer eye on Quinn, this would never have happened. I'm the one that left him and Marshal alone."

Jack shrugged, "Fine. Major Kofield, you can stay, but your team needs to take Marshal back."

"Yes sir," Kofield said, then turned to give Reiner his orders.

Reiner did not look happy with the arrangement, but he obeyed his leader. SG-team devotion at work.

Sam sighed, wondering if that would be enough to save Jonas.

Aniyuv led the way to the scene of the attack, though he appeared to be profoundly unhappy about it. Colonel O'Neill and Major Kofield walked with him, but Sam and SG-9 hung back in case they ran into trouble. Trouble seemed increasingly likely, as all around them Kirian people were stopping and staring.

Ayelas had seemed appalled by O'Neill's choice of tactics, but she had followed them when they left the CN&D building, and had fallen in beside Sam. She looked very upset, but not with the team from Earth. Sam remembered that this was the woman that they had made initial contact with. Jonas, Marshal and SG-7 had stayed in her home. A home that was now reduced to rubble.

Everything about Ayelas, from her eyes to her movement made it obvious she was just not quite human. She was far from a strange creature to Sam, who had traveled the galaxy and seen many bizarre and wondrous things. But Ayelas, she had probably never seen anything but her own people.

"We must've seemed very strange to you when you first met us," Sam said.

"Not strange," Ayelas responded in a mild tone, "Terrifying."

She turned her head enough to meet Sam's eyes, but continued walking.

"I suppose seeing people unlike any you've seen before would be-"

"You misunderstand," Ayelas told her, "You were not terrifying for your strangeness, but your familiarity."

"I'm sorry?" Sam tilted her head curiously.

"The Kirian no longer believe in a god, but the deity we believed in during more primitive days is present in many works of art. He is defined by his shortness, round eyes and unusual skin."

Sam happened to know that Jonas, the first human Ayelas had met, wasn't short. But, looking around, she realized that all the Kirian were over six feet in height. By 'round eyes', Sam could only assume Ayelas was referring to the pupil shape, not the eye itself. The Kirian were mostly pale, but some were dark skinned. What Sam realized was that the light played on their skin differently from the people she'd come here with. In artificially lit rooms, Ayelas and Sam had nearly the same skin tone. But under the natural light of Guf'yn, Ayelas seemed to glow slightly and looked far paler.

Over thousands of years, the Guf'yn had changed physically from Earth humans. But it seemed that their god had not. Of course not, a Goa'uld wouldn't change hosts if it didn't need to. But that meant that the Guf'yn had seen their god recently enough to recognize that they themselves had changed, whereas their deity had not. Whichever Goa'uld held power here, they had not been absent for long.

Sam was still contemplating the implications of that when they turned a street corner, and the block they were headed for came into view. Sam broke stride for a moment, and her breath caught. A soft cry came from Ayelas. Sam glanced at her, but she seemed to be holding together surprisingly well for someone who had just seen the ruins of what had been her home this morning.

Destruction always looked terrible, but something about encountering such chaos in a city which was uniform and neat made it worse. Buildings on either side of the cobblestone street had been gutted, their fronts smashed in or out, the stone broken. On a building whose front had been otherwise entirely razed, a door had remained stubbornly upright, and now looked horribly out of place in a sea of rubble. Metal structural supports that hadn't collapsed stood and hung at crazy angles, bent and useless. A thick layer of dust from the shattered stones lay over everything. On one side of the street, two buildings had been completely collapsed, but a building between them had been virtually untouched. Enforcers were roaming the street, moving cautiously, looking for evidence or survivors.

It was beginning to get dark, they didn't have much time to find something before night closed in.

"Ayelas," Sam said gently, "Which of these buildings did you live in?"

Wordlessly, Ayelas pointed. After looking at the crumbling pile of rock and twisted metal that had once been an apartment building, Sam glanced at Colonel O'Neill.

"Spread out," He said, his voice cold, "See what you can find."

He didn't need to tell them what they were looking for. SG-9 might not have been a search team, but they had the training they needed nonetheless. They were looking for any sign of Jonas, and what had happened to him. Sam just hoped he hadn't been buried beneath the debris after Marshal had last seen him. Even if he'd been captured by whoever had done this, that meant he was still alive. If he was still alive, they still had a chance to get him back.

But looking at the destruction, Sam found it hard to believe anyone had gotten out alive.

Evidently reading the distress on her face, O'Neill moved over to stand near Sam.

"We're gonna find him, Carter," Jack said softly, "Jonas is a lot tougher than he pretends to be."

"Yes sir," Sam replied without conviction.

Colonel O'Neill then led the way towards the building, and Sam followed him. Usually she had a lot of faith in whatever her leader said or did. But not this time. Sam, unlike the Colonel, had learned to see past the surface smiles Jonas offered whenever he was nervous, the jokes about his own skills that he used to hide his feelings of inadequacy. Almost as soon as Jonas had become a member of SG-1, Colonel O'Neill had set in on him with teasing and "friendly" mockery. Sam hadn't even thought about it, just followed the example set by her leader. She hadn't known then how terrified Jonas was of not being able to fit in, of being rejected. At least, that's what she told herself. But the truth was that she'd enjoyed making Jonas uncomfortable.

Truthfully, it was only because she was friends with Janet Fraser that she begun to realize. Because Janet had monitored him so closely when he first arrived to make sure he was carrying no diseases they should be worried about, or lacking an ability to fend off diseases the rest of them were immune to but still carriers of, Jonas had spent a lot of time with her.

At first, Janet had tried to harden her heart to the Kelownan, but Jonas was so easy-going, so open and cooperative, and so contagiously enthusiastic that it soon proved impossible. Still, it was months before Jonas let Janet in. He kept up the front of being happy-go-lucky, acting like everything was fine until one day he couldn't any more. The armor cracked, and Janet saw the truth.

What Jonas saw in himself was that he was worthless. And useless. His core beliefs about life had been not just shaken, but completely shattered by Daniel's actions. Jonas had given up his world, and everything that entailed, giving himself completely to Earth for the sake of SG-1. For Daniel Jackson, and for Colonel O'Neill, two practical strangers to him.

Jonas was scared, desperate, and utterly alone. He was in no condition to take taunts and teasing as jokes. He took them seriously, and every cut at him made him that much more afraid. Sam would never have even noticed, if Janet had not told her. Jonas was damned good at keeping his true feelings -particularly about himself- to himself.

She knew that, if anything, Jonas was a lot more fragile than he'd led Colonel O'Neill to believe over the past few months. When the Colonel said Jonas was tougher than he pretended to be, he was actually thinking of Daniel, not Jonas.


	11. Captive

They had been combing the wreckage for an hour, but Jack knew it was useless. Jonas had gotten out of the building, only to be caught by... who? They weren't going to find him here, and they wouldn't know a clue if they found one. The cobblestone streets ensured that there were no tracks to follow, and any dropped items they might find could just as easily belong to a former resident as whoever had done this. It bothered Jack though. Why only here, in this area? Most of the SG personnel had been at the CN&D building when this happened. But it couldn't be a coincidence that Jonas and Marshal had been in the area that was attacked.

Another thing that bothered him: who would have operatives in an area that was about to be bombed? It was almost illogical to think that whoever had taken Jonas was also responsible for this destruction. Jack had been on the ground more times than he cared to count when an explosion rocked a city or military compound. The perpetrators, assuming they weren't suicides, were typically nowhere to be found. They set the explosives and left long before they went off, or else dropped them from planes or shot rockets and were never nearby to begin with.

It was starting to look to Jack like Jonas had the profound misfortune to get caught in the middle of a civil war with a minimum of three factions. Though when Jack thought about it, Jonas was probably better equipped to recognize such a situation than any of them, because he'd spent his life living it. On his home-world, Jonas belonged to one of three factions.

Jack didn't think about it often, but Jonas probably knew the signs of war better than any of them except for Teal'c. But he hadn't seen this coming. None of them had.

"O'Neill," Jack looked over to see that Teal'c had knelt on what had been a sidewalk.

Jack and Carter moved to join Teal'c. In the dimming light, Jack couldn't see. It seemed that Carter couldn't either, because she just stood there as though expecting Teal'c to explain.

"Whatcha got?" Jack asked when Teal'c volunteered nothing.

"Blood," Teal'c replied, "of a not inconsiderable amount."

Jack knelt and examined the ground more closely, then switched on a penlight he was carrying. Teal'c was right. The blood was dry and black, but it couldn't have been there long or weather and being walked on would have removed it from the stone. This had to have been where Jonas was taken.

Jack's light caught something under a piece of debris and made the object glint. He moved over and reached for the it, pulling it out with his free hand and shining the light on it.

"That ring belongs to Jonas," Carter remarked.

"Yeah," Jack replied absently.

Jonas wore the ring all the time, usually on his right hand. Jack remembered noticing that Jonas would occasionally fiddle with it when he got nervous, or if he was thinking. Now he was suddenly struck by the realization that he hadn't seen Jonas wearing it for the first few months he was at the SGC. Not until right before (or was it right after?) Jonas joined SG-1. That obviously had to mean something, but Jack had never once thought to ask.

" _A good team mate is interested in the rest of his team as people,"_ Daniel's voice was saying, _"I shouldn't have to tell you how important that bond is."_

"I know," Jack said aloud, but nobody questioned it; they assumed he was responding to Carter.

Carter handed Jack the ring, and he put into a pocket of his vest without even looking at it. Though he knew it wasn't, the ring felt heavy in his pocket. He knew he was feeling the weight of shirked responsibility. The simple fact was that he didn't want to get to know Jonas. He didn't want to like the young Kelownan. But was it because he was subconsciously still holding Jonas responsible for Daniel's death? Or was it because he was afraid that Jonas would die too?

Jack didn't know. And that scared him more than anything.

* * *

The first thing Jonas became aware of was pain. His left arm felt swollen and useless, and when he shifted slightly he almost screamed when the action moved his arm. Opening his eyes proved to be a mistake because the tilting, spinning world was pock marked with black and white spots. He closed his eyes almost at once, slowly trying to process what he'd seen and finding that a painful endeavor. The left side of his face was sticky with dried blood.

Jonas had been told that it usually took a few seconds for the memory to come back after being rendered unconscious. But it didn't work that way for him. His memory hit like a bullet to the brain, full and detailed and forcing its way into his consciousness before he could properly assess his current condition. He snapped to a sitting position, promptly tipped over and fell off.

His eyes flashed open as he hit the floor on his left side and this time he really did cry out. His spinning vision and the piercing agony made it hard to tell when he'd rolled onto his back and off his injured side, so he mostly guessed and then stayed perfectly still, gazing at what he hoped was a ceiling until his traumatized systems caught up with his brain and settled down to accepting reality.

Once that happened, he looked in the direction of where he'd started. He'd rolled off onto a stone floor, but he figured whatever damage he'd sustained was less than what he'd gotten earlier. The ceiling was dark and pitched at an odd angle. The dark gray-blue hued walls were straight with slanted, gold colored supports. Jonas had fallen off what was either a bed or a bench; in any case it was a hard, flat surface about a foot or a foot and a half above the floor. Jonas knew before he tilted his head back against the floor that the side of the room he couldn't see had a very fancy looking golden door. He'd been in a cell like this before, not that long ago.

Having satisfied any curiosity he may have had about his immediate surroundings, Jonas glanced in the direction of the cot-bench-thing, and considered the effort it would take to get off the floor. But his head had finally stopped spinning, his vision was clearing and he was afraid of the tear-inducing pain that seemed to follow any movement of his limbs. It didn't seem worth it to move now. Maybe later.

 _Good job, Jonas,_ He thought _,_ _Just great. How's Colonel O'Neill ever supposed to have any faith in you if you get yourself kidnapped the first time you're let out by yourself? Excellent._

Berating himself motivated him to try sitting up again.

It felt like the worst mistake he'd made in his life, but he refused to lie back down. He rotated slightly so that his back was against the edge of the slab he'd fallen off of, and he used his right hand to move his left arm so that it was against his chest. The effort left him gasping, and he had to rest for a minute before he could work up the willpower to actually examine his arm to try and see if it was broken.

After determining that everything seemed to still be in one piece, Jonas dragged himself to his feet and struggled over to the door. He leaned against it, and then tried to find a place around the edge he could grab with his fingers to try prying it open. He figured it was locked, but it was worth trying anyway. He got nowhere with it, and eventually gave up.

Temporarily defeated, Jonas slid to a sitting position, leaning against the door and drawing up his knees. He tucked his wounded arm to his body and held it with his good arm, leaned his head back against the door, and settled in to wait.

There was nothing else he could do.

* * *

They'd had to call off the investigation for the night. Even with powerful flashlights, it would be too easy to miss something in the shadows of the night. Besides which, Jack was slowly accepting the reality that he probably wouldn't be able to find anything that would lead him to Jonas. Not at the scene of the crime anyway. It wasn't his first choice, but if he had to comb this whole damned city as well as its neighboring ones, Jack was prepared to do that to find his missing man.

Grogan's team was up early the next morning, trying to smooth things over with the Kirian Council. They weren't acting on their own. Grogan had come to Jack first thing that morning with the request. Jack now realized that threatening the Kirian had been a mistake, and it had gotten him nowhere. He should have listened to Daniel's voice in his head. But he'd never been good at diplomacy, that's what Daniel had been for. Beyond that, Jack realized that he'd been thinking of the Kelownans when he'd barged into the CN&D offices yesterday. He would have given anything to break into a council meeting in Kelowna and tell the high government exactly what he thought of them.

He hadn't been able to do that, so he'd used Jonas instead. It wasn't entirely just anger that had motivated him. It was also the knowledge that, had Daniel been the sort of man to make a last request, that request would have been that someone keep trying to reach the Kelownans, and make sure they knew the truth about what they were trying to do with that naquadria bomb.

It was hard to imagine Jonas barging in anywhere, but Jack knew the young Kelownan must have done just that some time after Jack had left him on Kelowna. Jonas had offended everyone he'd spent his life trying to impress, then stolen naquadria with the dual intention of slowing down the bomb manufacturing process and offering it to the SGC because he believed Jack when Jack told him that it could be used to make defensive weapons, not just explosives. Jonas' people believed he had turned traitor, and would kill him for it if he ever returned home, but the truth was that the price of the naquadria was Earth sharing with Kelowna any discoveries they made about using the naquadria for defensive (instead of offensive) purposes.

At the time, Jack had told himself he'd talked to Jonas because it was what Daniel would have been doing if he hadn't been too sick to move. He knew that it was what Daniel wanted. But Jack now doubted his own motives had been so pure. Had he just used Jonas as a pawn, a means of shaming and embarrassing the Kelownan government because he couldn't do it himself?

"Sir, does that look like a camera to you?" Carter's question drew Jack from thought and he first looked at her, then up at the thing she was looking at.

SG-1 and Kofield had returned to the scene of the bombing, mostly because they didn't know where else to start. Sure enough, mounted high on the sandstone wall of a building that was still standing, there was what appeared for all the world to be a security camera. They hadn't seen it the night before because they weren't looking at the walls much, it was dark, and the camera was the color of the walls.

"It's aimed at where the alley used to be," Carter said, "If it was rolling, it could have captured everything that happened, including who took Jonas after the fact."

"I'm gonna kill them," Jack growled angrily.

"Sir?" Carter asked.

"Aniyuv and Wilbur."

"Whilbarr, sir."

"Whatever," Jack snapped, "They had to know the camera was there, but they didn't tell us."

"We did break into their council chamber and threaten to shoot them, sir," Carter reminded him.

"We also said all we wanted was to find Jonas," Jack said, "Telling us about the camera, showing us the footage, that would have saved everyone a lot of time."

" _Jack...,"_ Daniel's voice in his head again, quiet, warning.

"Look, we're not going to threaten them again," Jack promised, speaking as much to himself as to Carter, "We're just going to politely ask them why the hell they didn't tell us about the cameras."

"Right, sir," Carter said, but it was obvious she was dubious.

Teal'c, for his part, said nothing. Neither, for that matter, did Kofield.

* * *

Jonas didn't realize he'd dozed off until the shifting of the door at his back snapped him awake. He hurriedly scrambled away from it and fought his way to a standing position, his back to the wall facing the door. He kept his injured arm tucked, but reached behind himself with the other and laid the flat of his palm against the wall to aid his balance as a wave of dizziness struck him.

As he'd expected, the door parted in the center and slid into slots in the walls on either side. What interested him more was the man who stood in the doorway once it was open.

The man was heavyset, tall as many of the Guf'yn people were, but dark complexioned and stern-faced. His dark, nearly black eyes seemed to pin Jonas to the wall and he frowned deeply, gesturing to someone out of view before stepping through the doorway. Another Guf'yn followed, a tall, sharp-featured blond with eyes equally piercing but blue instead of black. Both were armed, and also armored. Neither looked especially friendly.

Jonas was definitely afraid of them. He just wanted to press himself into the corner and whimper until they went away. But that wouldn't be appropriate for a member of SG-1, or a representative of Earth. Nor would it be respectful of the man whose memory Jonas was doing everything he could to honor.

He knew Col. O'Neill always had a ready quip prepared for situations such as this one, some snappy one liner that usually got him punched. But Jonas could think of nothing sarcastic to say. Since he couldn't try to be funny, he decided that being annoyed might be his next best strategy.

"So," he said, summoning all of his training and experience in diplomatic circles to make himself sound completely calm and totally relaxed about the situation, "You want to tell me why you've kidnapped a visitor from another planet? Is this normally how you treat guests?"

The man stepped closer and Jonas withheld the instinctive flinch that tried to make him cringe in the face of the large, clearly stronger person. His throat moved, but he prevented a sound from escaping and maintained eye contact, hoping that his fear wasn't evident.

"You are the negotiator for Earth," the man said flatly.

"I was assigned to speaking with the government officials in Kiri during initial contact with the people of this planet," Jonas had learned to be careful of his statements, continually wary of the many ways it was possible to misinterpret his each and every word.

"You even speak like them," the blond remarked with disgust.

Jonas spared her a glance, but quickly returned his attention to the man. By training and experience, Jonas was well prepared to recognize authority when he saw it. The man was clearly in charge of this particular situation, and it was he who Jonas must avoid angering if he didn't want to be hurt more than he already had been.

"Peace, Liliah," the man said, "The boy has spent three days speaking with Whilbarr's contingent of fools. Doubtless their tendency towards verbal excess has rubbed off on him somewhat."

"Uh... who are you?" Jonas asked, "And what do you want with me?"

He steeled himself for a blow, but none appeared forthcoming.

"We are Jinaz," the man said, "I am Dreu, this is Liliah."


	12. The Jinaz

"Jinaz," Jonas said slowly.

Based off of the details of his cell, Jonas had actually expected Goa'uld, or Jaffa in service to a Goa'uld. But Dreu and Liliah looked like all of the Guf'yn Jonas had met up to now. They bore no mark on their foreheads, their eyes didn't glow, their voices didn't seem to reverberate from within. Jonas wished that made him feel better, but it didn't. Dreu and Liliah seemed to take Jonas' hesitation as a question.

"A band of revolutionaries, if you believe the people," Dreu replied.

"A bunch of ruthless anarchists, if you believe the current government of Kiri," Liliah added.

"We believe in a freer Guf'yn than presently exists," Dreu explained, "One with far less governmental interference. You are new here, and may not have noticed the fact that Kiri does not function smoothly. Whenever something needs to be built, repaired or replaced, it takes months of convening and discussion among the government officials, then further talks with contractors. The amount of paperwork that must be signed to even get a light-bulb changed in a public building is crippling. If nothing is done, Kiri will slowly suffocate itself with governmental restrictions."

"And us along with it," Liliah added.

"So you... bombed the city. To what? Destroy Kiri's relations with Earth?"

"We had nothing to do with that," Liliah snapped, her eyes bright with anger, "We would never take aim at a neighborhood. If we were to bomb Kiri, we would begin with its Capitoline."

"And yet, I wound up in your hands," Jonas remarked.

"We have operatives in Kiri," Dreu said, a touch of pride in his tone, "When the explosions hit, they went to investigate. The man who found you knew nothing of Earth, but he knew you were not Kirian. Another operative, one with greater access, was able to explain you."

"I doubt that," Jonas offered.

Dreu took a step further into the room, and towards Jonas, "You are Jonas Quinn of Earth. You came here under the pretense of being interested in the stars."

"Your weapons give away the lie," Liliah said, "No stargazer I know would carry such things."

"Actually, I'm not the one interested in stars," Jonas said, "I came along as a translator."

"A what?" Liliah and Dreu exchanged puzzled looks.

The Guf'yn seemed to largely speak English, but some of their words had changed (or not changed), and some words probably hadn't been invented when they came to this planet originally. Jonas realized that, since the Kirian and Jinaz evidently spoke the same language, chances were that they didn't ever need to create a word for a person or thing which translated one language into another.

His mind raced, trying to think of an explanation. Dreu and Liliah both looked annoyed with him. What was it that Ayelas had called Goa'uld? The language of science?

"I can... read the language of science, and then explain it using words that can be understood by those who can't read it," Jonas said.

"Impossible," Liliah protested, "To translate science would be to obscure its meaning, or lose it entirely."

"That's not actually true," Jonas said gently, "Look, I don't know what the Kirian have told you, but-"

He got no further. Dreu abruptly closed the distance between them and backhanded Jonas across the face, hard enough to knock him down. Jonas hit the stone floor with a thud, gasping at the increased pain in his head, trying not to pass out as the world spun and turned gray in his vision.

"You compare the words of our god with the the propaganda of the Kirian," Dreu snarled in fury, "I should kill you here and now!"

Jonas glanced at where he guessed Dreu was standing, but his headache combined with injury he'd sustained earlier and the blow he'd just suffered to make him see four of everything, and everything was blurry and even more washed of color than usual. Jonas blinked a few times, trying to get his bearings, and his breath, but it didn't seem to help.

"I was... told," Jonas struggled with each word, "that you... didn't believe in... _god_."

"The Kirian Council would have its people believe that," Liliah said, "They invent rules that our god supposedly laid down, rules they do not follow, to show that they no longer follow the old ways. But all of the true laws of our god, they still obey. They ask the people to place their faith in government, and in science. But they know in their souls what the truth is, and they dare not go against the ancient laws of our god."

Jonas tried to follow the words, battling against the overwhelming fatigue that had come over him, against the throbbing in his skull, and against his own confusion.

"Does your god... have a name?" he managed to ask.

"He is your god as well. He is god of all," Liliah said.

Colonel O'Neill would probably have insisted on arguing. He would probably have told them that their god was nothing but a snake inhabiting a host, one that had abandoned them long ago. But Jonas didn't have it in him. Even the minor infraction of crediting the Kiri with something that the Jinaz' god had supposedly established had earned him a blow to the head. He didn't even want to guess what punishment he would receive for telling them their god was a false one.

"How can he be my god, if I don't even know his name?" Jonas asked, still trying to get an answer for his question.

He needed to know which Goa'uld had ruled this world. He needed to know what he was dealing with if he was to be effective in fighting against it. To do that, he needed to understand what was at the core of these people's beliefs. He needed a name to work with.

"You are not here to ask questions," Dreu said, "You are here to answer them."

"Answer what?" Jonas wanted to know, "You haven't asked me much of anything."

He'd finally regained enough composure to try standing up. He again had to use the wall to keep his balance, and it wasn't easy while keeping his hurt arm tucked to his body. Getting up was painful, but Jonas knew that no member of SG-1 ever stayed down when they could be standing up.

"What is offered by your world will lend strength to the Kirian government. That must not happen. The government is doomed regardless, but the Kirian people have suffered enough already, there is no reason to prolong it," Liliah said.

"I work for an organization called Stargate Command. I was temporarily assigned to the SG-7 team, who in turn assigned me to talk to the Kirian Council. I shouldn't even be here, and I certainly am not in charge of any decision making on the part of SG-7 or the SGC. I haven't got any power, if that's what you were hoping for," Jonas knew he could just be digging himself into deeper trouble, but he felt it imperative that these people understand they had captured nothing of value when they took him.

"Then you are fortunate we are not Riktari," Dreu remarked dryly, "They will kill anyone who does not assist them in achieving their goals."

"And even some who do," Liliah added.

"In any case," Dreu said after a moment's thought, "There may yet be information that you, as a representative of Earth, can offer us."

"I doubt it," Jonas told him, "I don't really know much."

It was a lie, Jonas knew a great deal more than most Earthlings. But he didn't want the Jinaz to know that. The less they thought he knew, the less they would try to get out of him. There was a lot he could tell them which could help damage or destroy Earth's relations with Kiri, especially since they were in the fragile beginning stages. He could also give them information that could ultimately endanger Earth. But they didn't know what he knew, or even what questions to ask.

However, they did seem to know how to conduct a search of a captured person. Jonas hadn't been entirely aware of it until now, but he'd been stripped of every piece of technology he'd been carrying, including his watch. They'd also taken his knife, jacket and vest. In fact, all he had left was pants, shirt and boots. He was suddenly glad that the Guf'yn people were relatively advanced. Obtaining alien technology was unlikely to make much difference, as they had already developed weapons and equipment as advanced as what Jonas had been carrying.

Dreu stepped closer, and got right in Jonas' face. Jonas instinctively tried to back up, but he was already against the wall so there was actually nowhere for him to go. He tried to stifle the trembling that shook him, and met Dreu's gaze levelly.

"I do not believe you," Dreu said, his voice barely a whisper, "You know more than you're letting on."

"I won't help you hurt my friends," Jonas told him.

"When the time comes, you will tell us freely, or we shall make you speak. We have experience in making those speak who do not wish to, and we are not afraid to use those methods upon you."

Jonas didn't like the sound of that at all. Again, he felt the urge to crawl into a corner and whimper. Instead, he bit his tongue, and simply stared at Dreu, trying not to show that he was deeply afraid. Dreu stood pressing Jonas against the wall a moment more, then he abruptly turned away and marched from the room. Liliah turned sharply and followed, the door sliding shut and locking behind her.

Jonas gasped, letting out the breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.

 _You should have just kept your mouth shut, Jonas._

* * *

Having been unconscious for a time, and now being locked in a room without even an indirect view of the outside, Jonas had no means of telling how much time had passed between the bombing of the apartment building and now. Worse, he was experiencing periodic gray-outs (probably as a result of the head injury he'd sustained), and he couldn't measure time during them at all. Under the circumstances, he could barely tell the difference between a minute and an hour.

In any case, Jonas didn't have much hope for rescue. Even assuming that SG-7 and SG-9 did not presume him dead and buried under a collapsed building, how much trouble would they really be willing to go to for him? Everyone knew the story. He was just a way for Colonel O'Neill to keep a Russian off the team. Well, now the Russians had their own team, so that threat was gone. He'd been a miserable substitute for Dr. Jackson; Jonas was wrong more often than he was right, and he was useless in a combat situation (not only had he proven that firsthand, O'Neill reminded him of it often).

A year or two from now, who would even remember who he was?

Jonas didn't doubt the loyalty of SG-1. He knew the lengths they would go to in order to save one of their own, even if they didn't know if that one was alive or dead. They would do anything for a member of their team, take any risk, face any danger. But Jonas wasn't one of their own, regardless of what his uniform said, and everyone knew it. O'Neill wanted nothing more than to be rid of him, and here was the perfect chance. Seeing the aftermath of the bombing, nobody would be blamed for assuming that Jonas hadn't made it out.

Marshal had been unconscious during most of the escape, she probably wouldn't remember a thing. It would be perfectly believable for the Air Force lieutenant to have made her way out, and for the geeky academic to have been killed at the first impact.

Jonas didn't want to die, but he knew he wasn't worth looking for. In a way, he was glad. He didn't want anyone else to get hurt or die because of him, he wasn't sure he could take it if that happened.

But that didn't mean that he was giving up. Maybe he couldn't ever live up to the standards set by SG-1, but he'd known from the start that if he was going to wear the shoulder patch he had to do his best to try. He knew his best probably wasn't good enough, but he had read the files and he knew that had never stopped SG-1 from giving it their all for what they believed in. The devotion and courage that defined SG-1 was what Dr. Jackson had died to prove, even if nobody seemed to realize it.

Jonas guessed that Major Carter could find a way out of this cell, but he didn't have her skill set. What he could do though, was see the inadequacies of this cell. Though it was built to look like a Goa'uld prison cell, on closer examination Jonas could tell by sight and touch that the materials used were different. The Goa'uld used naquadah in their weapons, in their ships, and in their buildings. The material was so prevalent in all that they built that it was even present in their very blood. This cell had either no naquadah, or very little. It wasn't Goa'uld design, but an imitation of it.

Jonas already knew that he couldn't open the door. Investigating every inch of the walls and floor he could reach didn't reveal any hidden weaknesses. Having seen the door in operation, he knew it worked more or less like a Goa'uld designed one. The main difference was in the sound. The door slid aside heavily, and Jonas had been distinctly aware of the sound of the mechanics, where ordinarily there would just be the sound of stone sliding against stone and no sound of machinery behind it.

Jonas didn't see how that information might help him just now.

As he was making a useless second examination of the room for the sake of thoroughness, Jonas was startled to hear the mechanical grating sound of the door sliding open. Jonas turned and saw that Dreu was in the doorway, accompanied by someone Jonas did not recognize. But he did recognize the black and gold uniform of an Enforcer. He wasn't sure why it surprised him that the Jinaz should have Enforcers just like the Kirian, but it did. Enforcers were basically the equivalent of security guards and police, things almost every city on any given planet where humans resided needed.

It had taken Jonas surprisingly little time to learn to read the eyes of the Guf'yn. He found Dreu especially easy to read. He knew the moment that he saw the look on Dreu's face and in his eyes.

"The time has come," Dreu said.

Jonas nodded, and quietly asked, "What do you want to learn from me?"

"At first we believed that your people were just as surprised by the explosions as we were," Dreu answered, "But there have since been reports that, not only haven't your people left the area, they appear to be forcing the Kirian Council to accede to their demands. We need to know their intentions. Are they attempting to take over the city of Kiri?"

"No," Jonas shook his head, "That's not how Stargate Command operates."

"Did they set the bombs?" Dreu asked.

"No," Jonas answered, "I told you, that's not what we do. We didn't come here to cause trouble, or hurt anyone. We only came here to explore."

"Then what is a team of your world's Enforcers doing in the middle of Kiri? How are they swaying the Council without first having to spend hours negotiating and then more filling out the appropriate forms? How are they doing this, if not by force?"

"I don't know," Jonas admitted, "But we're not Enforcers. We're explorers."

While it was the simplest form of the truth, the answer did not come close to encompassing the full scope of what the Stargate Program represented. But it was the only answer he could safely offer, especially since he had no idea what was going on outside these walls.

Dreu shook his head slowly, "I would like to believe you."

"Then do, because it's the truth," Jonas said.

"That's not good enough. We need answers, real answers. And you're going to give them to us."

"I don't have any!" Jonas exclaimed, "How am I supposed to tell you what I don't know?"

"Unfortunately, neither of us have a choice," Dreu told him, then addressed the Enforcer, who had remained silent up until now, "Take him to be interrogated."

"This is a mistake," Jonas insisted, "Please, don't do this."

"In times of war, sacrifices must sometimes be made," Dreu seemed to try to look at him, but was unable to meet Jonas' eyes, "You will tell us what we need to know, or die."

"I can't tell you what I don't know," Jonas said, but Dreu did not answer.

The Enforcer, easily twice Jonas' size, stepped through the door. Jonas reflexively moved to back up, but checked himself because there was nowhere for him to actually go. The Enforcer grabbed hold of the upper part of his injured arm, and Jonas yelped involuntarily as he was dragged from the cell. Dreu ignored him, continuing to face the cell even as Jonas was dragged out of it.


	13. Interrogation

The Jinaz interrogator was clearly dissatisfied with every answer Jonas offered him. This was mainly because Jonas couldn't offer him the answer he wanted. The only answers he could offer were ones the Jinaz apparently already knew. He didn't know what was going on between the representatives of Earth and the Kirian Council. He didn't know who the new SG-personnel on the scene were (though he could guess). He didn't know what they were doing.

Worse than the answers he couldn't give them were the ones he did. The interrogator didn't appreciate Jonas insisting that the Earthlings had come in peace, that they had not set the bombs, that they had no malicious intent towards Kiri or Jinaz or Guf'yn as a whole. Jonas got the impression the interrogator either didn't believe him, or actually wanted him to lie about it.

Jonas soon became convinced that the Jinaz also did not understand the command structure of the SGC, that they were so deeply mired in their own culture that they couldn't even conceive of how another might work, which did not bode at all well for their obvious intention of changing how things were done from the way the Kirian had insisted on. The Jinaz interrogator seemed to really believe that Jonas had to be one of the people in power because he had served as Negotiator.

The Jinaz interrogation methods, in comparison with what the Goa'uld were capable of, were fairly primitive. But when flesh is sliced open by a whip, how primitive the device is suddenly seems very academic, because the reality is that it is a very painful device, primitive or otherwise.

Jonas knew he must have blacked out at some point because -though he remembered being taken out of his cell, cuffed and led down a featureless corridor to a large, ill-lit room without windows- he did not recall having been returned to the cell from whence he had come afterward.

The first thing he did upon regaining consciousness was fall off the narrow cot again. This very nearly elicited a scream as he landed this time not on his injured arm but on his ripped back. When he rolled onto his right side, he left blood on the floor. He couldn't quite stifle the whimper of pain as he rolled, then lay on his side, gasping as he waited for it to subside enough for him to think straight.

He sort of wished the memory of his interrogation was fuzzy and mushed. Instead, he remembered each question with perfect clarity, his damnably good recall had captured the distinct feel of each and every lash from the whip. There hadn't been that many, he knew. Between each, he was allowed time to let the feel of it absorb into his consciousness while his interrogator talked, the intent clearly being to increase his fear of each subsequent lash by the knowledge of what the previous had felt like.

He also recalled that, nearing the end of the interrogation, his memory wasn't quite as clear as before; he'd begun to lose hold on consciousness. The last thing he clearly recalled was someone pulling his hair and forcing his head up so he could see what they were holding. The GDO transmitter.

Did they want to go through the Stargate? Intend to take the SGC hostage? Send a bomb through? Jonas did not believe them capable of any of that, even with his code, but he wasn't about to give it to them. He could only assume that he had not because he didn't remember having done so. Of course, he didn't remember being returned to his cell either, nor did he remember the context of the question regarding the GDO... or even the question itself. For all he knew, they had merely wanted to know what it was. He wasn't used to not remembering, and it made him nervous.

Jonas decided he had to try and sit up. Doing so sent fire burning across his back, but Jonas merely grit his teeth and waited for it to pass once he managed to make it to a sitting position. Sitting up was hard enough, but pushing himself to a standing position was beyond his powers. He tried, but at first he couldn't get his legs to obey him. When he finally got them under him, he didn't have the strength to rise. In attempting to do so, he only served to make himself dizzy and he nearly fell onto his side again, catching himself just in time. He kept trying until blackness crept into the edges of his vision, then finally he admitted defeat and decided he would have to rest and try to regain his strength.

It wasn't as if getting to his feet now would do anything now anyway. He couldn't go anywhere anyway and, even if he could, he wouldn't know where to go.

* * *

Interrupting the meeting could have proven to be a giant mistake, but Whilbarr conferred with his cabinet and they decided to overlook the indiscretion. Whilbarr revealed that they had already been aware of the camera, and realized its significance from the start. Apparently, deliberations had been underway when Jack and the others had burst in the night before. The departments of security and public relations had been arguing about whether or not to view the footage at all.

"Hold on, let me get this straight," Jack practically snarled, fighting to keep his irritation in check – and failing, "You're saying you knew that security camera probably caught everything, and you not only didn't tell us, but you were thinking of not even looking at it yourselves?"

"Colonel O'Neill," Whilbarr said, his tone maddeningly patient and slightly parental, "The deliberations for whether to tell you could not begin until those concerning whether or not we ourselves viewed the footage were complete."

"I don't believe this," Jack hissed under his breath, but only Carter seemed to hear him.

She twitched, slightly shaking her head, silently recommending that Jack keep hold of his temper.

"Of course, even had we decided not to view the footage ourselves, we would still have discussed allowing you to view the recording," Whilbarr added.

"Of course," Jack echoed sarcastically, barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes.

"Surely, Colonel O'Neill, you can appreciate the need for thoroughness and precision in all diplomatic and governmental matters," Whilbarr said, and it sounded oh-so-reasonable when he said it.

"Yes," Jack said curtly, "But you should know that I also appreciate the need for expediency where the assault and kidnapping of a member of my team is concerned."

"I am aware," Whilbarr said, his expression darkening for a moment before he continued blandly, "I assure you, deliberations have been hurried as much as is possible. In fact, they are very nearly complete. This is why you are not being arrested for barging into these chambers unannounced and without prior consent of the governing body."

"What?"

"We should shortly have called for you anyway, to tell you of our decision."

"Which is?" Jack prompted.

"Yet to be reached. You may take a seat and have some Percolate while you wait," Whilbarr gestured to the empty end of the table, and the ominous black container of liquid.

Jack found himself grinding his teeth, trying to decide how bad it would really be if he said that he would not take a seat, and they damn well better hand over the footage right now or he'd start shooting. Actually, he was tempted to shoot Whilbarr just on principle.

He glanced at Grogan, sitting among his team mates across the table from Whilbarr's group. Grogan just looked back at him and shrugged helplessly. Jack slowly dragged his gaze to look at the empty metal chairs at the end of the table.

Just as he opened his mouth to say he'd prefer standing, someone came through a door Jack hadn't noticed and scurried up behind Whilbarr. The smaller person bent and spoke into the Community Director's ear, casting a wary glance at the standing SG-1 about halfway through. Whilbarr nodded, then waved a hand to dismiss the intruder, who hurriedly left the way they'd come.

Jack watched the door seem to expand to fill the space and resume its disguise as a part of the wall. He frowned at it, wondering how many doors he wasn't aware of. He didn't like the hidden door concept at all. He didn't much care for the idea that someone could jump out of the wall at him.

"The footage has been viewed by security personnel," Whilbarr spoke suddenly, making Jack jump.

"And?" Jack inquired, impatient but trying to pretend he wasn't.

"And it has been agreed to forego the discussion of allowing you to view it. Your Lieutenant Grogan will be permitted to negotiate immediately for the information gleaned from our viewing of the film."

"Excuse me?" Jack bristled, his last nerve finally snapping.

"What have you to offer that is equal to or greater than the information we now possess?" Whilbarr rephrased, seeming to think Jack had misunderstood him.

Jack choked on all the epithets he wanted to turn loose, and found himself saying nothing. Kofield seemed more able to keep his temper, and spoke hurriedly, one eye fearfully on Jack as though worried that the Colonel would speak before he could finish his proposal.

"The location and recovery of our personnel is essential to continuing relations between our two peoples," Kofield said, speaking so rapidly the words tumbled over each other, "If you do not share the information contained on that security footage, we cease negotiating immediately and withdraw all offers which were being discussed prior to the attack. What we offer for the information is continued relations."

Jack blinked and turned wide eyes on Kofield, who now had eyes only for the Kirian Council. They whispered amongst themselves. Could it really be that easy? If it was, Kofield deserved a medal for ingenuity. Or possibly just a stay of execution for being responsible for the beginning of this fiasco.

After about five minutes, Whilbarr turned to Kofield and nodded curtly. Kofield seemed to deflate as he let out a silent sigh of relief. Jack realized the Major had been holding his breath for several seconds. Whilbarr did not address him, but instead turned to Jack.

"Quinn was removed from the alley by J'mil, long-time sympathizer and known supporter of the Jinaz. Evidence confirms that J'Mil is now active in his membership."

"So you're having violent disagreement with your own people, and we got caught in the middle."

"It is only violent because the Jinaz are nothing if not violent," Whilbarr explained, "It is the belief of the Jinaz that the only way to obtain something is to take it by force. When they want information, they take our people, torture them, and finally kill them. They do not negotiate, they demand."

"They are vicious, Colonel," the matronly woman seated to Whilbarr's right clarified, "There is no reasoning with them."

"So why the _Hell_ did they take Jonas?!" Jack roared.

"Possibly they thought to make it appear as though he was responsible for the bombing," the woman said, "Intending for negotiations to break down. Knowing that either we would refuse to continue relations, or that you would."

"Well that's stupid," Jack said flatly, "What are the chances he's still alive, since that hasn't happened?"

Whilbarr and the woman exchanged uneasy looks, but it was Whilbarr who spoke in the end.

"We do not know. The logic of the Jinaz is difficult, nay impossible, to understand."

"How reassuring," Jack remarked, "Where can we find them?"

"If we knew that, they would not even now be roaming freely, doing who knows what kind of damage in the name of their 'cause'," The woman's voice betrayed disgust.

"We know their base of operations is the city of Jinaz," Whilbarr said, "But most of the population knows nothing of what the radicals intend, or where they hide. We know they have operatives here in Kiri, but we don't know where they are."

"Actually..." Aniyuv, who had been standing silently by the door, spoke hesitantly

All eyes turned on him, and he nervously cleared his throat and finished what he'd started.

"We received a report this morning that a captured Riktari spy had been questioned. One of the things revealed by this spy was that the Riktari had recently become aware of the location of a Jinaz base within the city. A discussion group convened this morning and it was decided that a raid on the place was in order. But, by the time we arrived, the building was empty."

"Riktari?" Jack asked, saying nothing about the bad tactics of wasting so much time before acting on hot information like a terrorist base's location.

Whilbarr explained, "They have many spies, both within the Kirian government and the Jinaz radicals. They seldom give credible information on themselves, but are useful when captured as they know more of our enemies than we do and are willing to share that information with minimal negotiation."

Negotiation with prisoners? What next? Jack wondered how the Kirian government as it stood now could possibly maintain any kind of power with not one, but two organizations trying to overthrow it. Hell, Jack felt certain that he could single-handedly topple the current power structure since it seemed to be based entirely upon hand-cramping amounts of paperwork and little else.

Aniyuv spoke again, "Our operatives found evidence that the Jinaz had occupied the building and had probably left in a hurry. So much so that they failed to set explosives to destroy the base behind them. We found a survivor, and are currently in the process of discussing whether or not to negotiate with him for information. It is unlikely he would give up the location of any major Jinaz strongholds, but he may give us the location of J'Mil, who is no soldier. He would be easy enough to break were violence to be turned upon him."

"We want to be part of that operation," Jack said.

"I thought you might," Aniyuv replied neutrally, "I took the liberty of beginning a Discussion last night with the Enforcer & Security Council, a subdivision of the Community Negotiation and Discussion Offices. It was agreed that you would be permitted to be observers under my authority."

* * *

Jonas was surprised that he could be hungry right now. Thirst had been his companion for some time, but he'd been ignoring that. After resting for a time (if resting was the word for it), Jonas had sat up again and found his shirt where it had been dropped after being taken from him and gingerly put it back on. Now, lying on his right side on the floor, he found himself facing the door.

Somehow, amidst all the aches and pains, Jonas felt the gnaw of hunger most clearly.

He knew it was a byproduct of his somewhat unique metabolism. On Kelowna, he'd been only slightly aware of needing to eat more (or at least more frequently) than other males of his age and general activity level. On Earth, it quickly became apparent that his body burned through fuel at a much higher rate than anyone else on base. Fraser had made some attempt to explain to him why that was, and he'd grasped at least enough to know that he should eat when he was hungry rather than risk burning out, and that he should carry snacks with him wherever he went. Some people could keep going awhile once hunger manifested itself, but Jonas' ability to function ground to a halt when he needed to eat.

Suddenly, Jonas heard a flurry of activity on the other side of the door.

Distracted from his thought process, he lifted his head and listened. People were running, there was some shouting. And then came an explosion, which seemed to rock the structure to its foundations. Jonas felt the floor vibrate, saw the walls shake and dust rattle loose from seemingly nowhere.

Jonas sat up, still focused on the other side of the door. There was more shouting, more running. And then came the shooting. Jonas knew almost at once that it wasn't an SG team out there. The sound of gunfire was there alright, but it was clearly not from any of the standard issue weaponry of the SGC. Jonas knew the sound of every weapon that personnel from the SGC carried. He knew also the sound of staff weapons and zats. All he could assume was that the sound he heard now belonged to projectile weapons of the sort he'd seen the Jinaz carrying.

Abruptly, the door in front of him shuddered into its two sections and slid aside. Dreu stepped inside and Jonas shakily stood as he approached.

"Come," Dreu said, taking Jonas' right arm in a hand that gripped like iron, "We're leaving."

"Where are we going?" Jonas asked innocently.

"Come," Dreu repeated, and yanked Jonas forward roughly so that he stumbled.

Instinct told Jonas that, if he was going to escape, the time to do so was rapidly approaching.

He just hoped he'd have what it took when the time came.


	14. The Liar

Jonas began to wonder what he'd been thinking. Dreu was so much stronger than he was, and dragging him at an unforgiving pace. More than once, Jonas' legs started to go from under him, but Dreu would simply yanked him upright and continue towing him along.

Still, the time came when Jonas least expected it.

Around the corner of the corridor they were heading down, there suddenly came about half a dozen people. They spotted Dreu, Liliah and Jonas and immediately opened fire. Liliah opened a door to the left, and Dreu ducked through it, tugging Jonas with him.

Abruptly, Dreu shoved Jonas hard and let go off him, causing Jonas to fall and slide on the slick floor. Dreu pivoted, drawing a weapon of his own and firing at the intruders beyond the door while Liliah ducked inside. They were not in good shape, but now the Jinaz had cover to fire from.

Jonas, meanwhile, crawled behind a storage bin and out of the line of fire.

As though suddenly deciding to try and talk rather than shoot, a shout came from the corridor.

"We are here for the Earth man, nothing more! Give him to us, and we will let you go!"

That sounded marginally reasonable, though not knowing who was outside made Jonas a bit wary of wanting to go with them. Still, he could hardly do any worse than being a prisoner of the Jinaz. It seemed unlikely that he could have worse captors, even should the people outside prove unfriendly. From the Jinaz perspective, these people had the upper hand. Surely Dreu would see reason and choose to let Jonas go rather than shoot it out with-

"Come and take him then, Riktari scum! That is, if you dare!" Dreu yelled back.

Negotiations broke down almost immediately, unless one counted trading shots as negotiating. Jonas supposed it was a manner of argument, only the results were more permanent than most disputes. For the moment, he realized that Dreu and Liliah were completely ignoring him in favor of keeping all of their attention on their enemy; who outnumbered them three to one.

Looking around, Jonas spotted another door besides the one they'd entered through. If it had been SG-1 out in the corridor, Jonas told himself he'd have tried to overpower or at least hinder either Dreu or Liliah. He wasn't confident that he would be brave enough to do that, but fortunately he didn't have to prove whether or not he would have been because it wasn't SG-1 out there. Jonas decided to go for the door, and hope he could make his way out of the building without being noticed by either the Riktari or the Jinaz. Hopefully, the two groups would be too busy settling their differences to notice him.

Jonas made it to the door by staying low, then looked for the latch that opened it. Unlike his cell, this room looked more like what he'd seen in Kiri, as did the door. The panel was well-disguised, flush with the wall, and made to have the same color and look the same texture. But Jonas had seen panels like this in the Kirian CN&D building, and he had a good idea as to how how they worked. He just hoped there wasn't a lock or secret code on this one as he tugged the latch to open it.

Jonas kept a nervous eye on Dreu and Liliah, and so almost didn't notice the person on the other side of the door. Fortunately, they were as startled to see him as he was to see them. Almost reflexively, Jonas punched them in the nose. He flinched at the feel of cartilage cracking under his knuckles, and recoiled at the blood that spewed. But his unwary opponent went down with minimal sound, mostly just the clattering of their weapon hitting the floor.

It was enough to draw the attention of Liliah, who rotated where she crouched and fired. Jonas ducked as she did so and she missed. Jonas knelt and picked up the dropped weapon of the person he'd punched in one smooth motion, then turned his newly acquired firearm on Liliah.

"I don't want to kill anyone," Jonas said, aware of his shaky aim, "I just want to leave."

His aim wasn't shaky because of doubt, but a lack of strength in his arm and uncertain balance that was mostly the result of the head injury, and the after effects of interrogation.

What Liliah might have done next is anyone's guess. But she never got the chance. She had made the mistake of changing her position to fire at Jonas, and had thus exposed herself to her enemies. A flurry of gunfire followed, and Liliah's eyes widened, then went blank as she abruptly pitched forward, dead from at least three bullets to the back of the head.

The Riktari ceased firing when Liliah went down, but Jonas didn't relax. He knew they were out there, no doubt listening as he was, wondering if it was now safe to proceed.

Chances were high that the person Jonas had decked was one of the Riktari, and they'd been trying to sneak in and surround the Jinaz. When Liliah turned and fired behind her, those in the corridor doubtless assumed that she was firing on one of their own. They had shot her in the back of the head, but quite probably to defend the life of one of their own, and Jonas couldn't fault them for that.

On the other hand, Col. O'Neill and the rest of SG-1 had taught him that anybody on the other side of the Stargate might be an enemy, and that he should be wary and suspicious until they proved otherwise. It sounded paranoid, but he'd quickly discovered that it was how SG-1 and other teams like them survived. And too, he knew that wariness was tempered with reason. After all, when Jonas himself had stepped through the Stargate and into the SGC, they had miraculously decided not to shoot him dead on the spot (though the greater miracle was that they had even let him through when he asked them to, opening the iris to let him come). One could be suspicious without being unreasonable.

Dreu obviously wanted no part of the Riktari, but of course he was their enemy. The moment he saw Liliah fall, Dreu went for a panel on his side of the room, opened a door and fled, leaving Jonas to his own devices. Apparently, Dreu had given up hope of keeping his prisoner and was now running for his life. An ominous silence followed.

Jonas kept the firearm he'd confiscated high, a finger on the trigger guard. He'd hesitated to fire on an assailant before, and near disaster had been the result. It wasn't the first time he'd frozen under pressure, but he was determined that it was going to be the last. If anybody came through that door and leveled a weapon on him, he was prepared to fire.

He would have preferred to run as Dreu had. But he would have to cross the open doorway to reach the door Dreu had gone through, and he could only expect Jinaz in that direction. The door he himself had opened led to another room, but he had to assume the Riktari he'd knocked out wasn't the only one which lay in that direction. Possibly the door would take him through a room that led right back out into the corridor. The fact, plain and simple, was that he had nowhere to run to.

And so he waited.

He didn't have long to wait. Before much time had passed, those in the corridor began their approach to the room. They positioned people on either side of the open doorway, then one of them peered in, saw Jonas and quickly ducked back, clearly expecting him to fire.

When he didn't, they seemed to have a moment of confusion before someone called out to him.

"You're the Earth man," the voice said, loud and clearly meaning to intimidate, "Not with the Jinaz."

"No," Jonas replied, "I'm not. But I don't like being shot at any more than they do."

He was pleased to hear that his voice was steady, sounding more confident than he felt. He was scared, but he was trying to imitate how O'Neill always sounded in situations like this. Col. O'Neill made it sound as if he found firefights tiresome, and shots traded between enemies extremely annoying, as if he felt very inconvenienced by violent exchanges, and pissed about having to participate in them.

Maybe Jonas couldn't fight his way out, but he could damn well act as if he was ticked off. It was not for nothing that he had been chosen as the guide for the people of Earth when they arrived on Kelowna. Everyone had been nervous about or even scared of the alien visitors, but Jonas was capable of powering through it and acting as if he was merely excited. Now he was channeling all the anxiety and adrenaline fueled fear he was experiencing into behaving irritated. It seemed to be working.

"We don't want to shoot you," the voice said, sounding a little less fierce than before, perhaps a little more conciliatory instead, "We came here to rescue you."

 _I wish I could believe that,_ Jonas thought.

What he said was, "I'll make a deal with you: If you don't shoot me, I won't shoot you."

Jonas knew his nerves were failing him, the pain and weakness in his body were distracting, and the aching emptiness of his stomach was tearing at his focus even now. But he didn't have to hold out much longer. It would be over, either way, in a matter of moments. Either the Riktari would prove friendly or they would try to kill him. In a moment, he would be either lowering his weapon or fighting for his life, possibly for the last time if the latter proved to be the case.

"That sounds good to me," the voice said, "One of us is going to come in there now. But I think it's only fair to remind you that we have you outnumbered and surrounded, so it's no good trying to shoot your way out in any case."

"Maybe not, but I can sure take at least one of you with me if I have to," Jonas knew he'd made too quick a response, not taking enough time to make sure his voice was steady; it wavered slightly.

A wary young man in a Guf'yn variation of military fatigues stepped through the doorway, slightly crouched and with a rifle-type weapon held at the ready. He and Jonas pointed their guns at one another for a lengthy few seconds as each tried to assess the inclination the other had towards shooting him.

Finally, Jonas relented and lifted the barrel of his firearm, pointing it above the Riktari soldier's head. The man turned from him to check the rest of the room, but never entirely turned his back.

"Clear," came the low voiced report.

From the open doorway came two more people. A fourth person came to the door Jonas had opened and knelt to check the fallen soldier beside him.

"Sorry about that," Jonas said genuinely, "He startled me. I was just trying to escape."

"He's alive," the kneeling man muttered, "That means you left him with more than one of those Jinaz bitches would have."

One of the others made a noncommittal grunt. Jonas looked around at the group, and found it easy to identify their leader, the man he guessed had spoken to him. The leader of the Riktari team was stocky, with salt and pepper hair and dark brown eyes.

"We'll be taking that back," he said, reaching out a hand for the firearm Jonas held onto.

Careful to make no sudden moves and keeping his gun aimed away from the people, Jonas said, "I'd rather keep it for the moment, if it's all the same to you."

"Hey, the Jinaz are clearin' out," the man said, "'sides, we outnumber you, if you're thinkin' of havin' it out with us, I guarantee you can't shoot ten men with one bullet, which is the least you'd have to do to make it through us. C'mon, Quinn, just hand over the gun. You won't need it."

Jonas believed everything up until the last. Really, he understood their insistence on disarming him. SG-1 would do no less were the positions reversed. Not only was Jonas obviously unconvinced that the Riktari were on his side, there was no evidence from their perspective that he'd had any weapons' training. An untrained academic with a gun was a disaster waiting to happen, particularly if that person didn't trust you, as Jonas did not trust the Riktari. But it was precisely because he did not trust them that he was reluctant to relinquish the only advantage he had.

Still, looking from face to face around him, it was obvious he didn't have a real choice. This request was the precursor to a demand. They were going to disarm him, regardless. He might as well cooperate, make it easier for everyone, particularly himself. He didn't need to be roughed up anymore than he already had been. His left arm was throbbing just from having supported his aiming arm, and he had put almost his entire weight on his right leg so that he wouldn't tremble where he stood. He was in no shape for any kind of struggle, and the Riktari could probably see that.

With a sigh, Jonas awkwardly transferred the weapon to his left hand, holding the barrel and covering the trigger guard with his fingers so that when the other person took the weapon from him they would be grabbing only the grip and not the trigger. The gun aimed at the floor as he passed it over. He hesitated to release it, making sure the other man had it before letting go and pulling his hand back.

Despite the fact that he'd handed the weapon over exactly as Major Carter had taught him to when she showed him how to transfer a gun from person to person in safety, he couldn't help but hear Colonel O'Neill in his head, rebuking him for allowing himself to be disarmed. He wanted to tell the man he had no choice, but it was only a voice in his head, caused by his own doubt.

"It's time we left," the man said, passing the confiscated weapon to the man on his right, "Kevs, move us out."

"Sir."

Jonas followed them down several stair flights and then out the back of the building where he'd been held, hesitating when he saw the people just outside with their weapons out and prisoners kneeling before them, hands tied behind their backs and ankles bound together. Jonas recognized some of them as Jinaz, but Dreu was not among them.

The man Jonas had initially talked to appeared to be in charge, so Jonas addressed him.

"What are you going to do with them?" he asked quietly, a knowing dread welling up inside.

"Kevs, take Quinn to the vehicle," the commander said, ignoring Jonas.

Kevs took hold of Jonas' good arm, "Come."

But Jonas dug in and turned towards the prisoners. He couldn't break Kevs' grip, and that was when he knew. These were not people he wanted to be around. But it was too late to get away, assuming there'd ever been a time when that was possible anyway.

Kevs did not seem set on dragging Jonas away, instead moving around to try and block the Kelownan's view of the proceedings, as if that would prevent him from realizing what was happening. But Jonas had seen the Riktari leader taking out his sidearm. The glint of metal in the sunlight was unmistakable.

"No," Jonas breathed, then spoke louder, "You said you only wanted me! You said you'd let them go!"

The Riktari leader lifted his eyes to meet Jonas' gaze, and there was death in their stony depths. He smiled slightly, but the attempt at levity did not erase the dark, purposeful look in his eyes.

"You said you'd let them go," Jonas repeated.

The Riktari leader raised the gun and took aim at his first victim and said, "I lied."

And then he pulled the trigger.


	15. Across the Bridge

Aniyuv might not have been happy about SG-1, but he had nonetheless paved the way for them to find J'Mil. He had been thorough in his questioning of the Jinaz prisoner, though his unconventional methods led Jack to have his doubts about how reliable the information the Jinaz eventually gave them might be. The Jinaz operative wanted to be set free, but the most he could get out of Aniyuv was a sentence reduction. They haggled over how much of a reduction, then finally the operative gave Aniyuv what he wanted to know: the location where J'Mil was hiding out.

"We're going with you," Jack said firmly.

Aniyuv sighed deeply, but nodded curtly, "Unfortunately, our next move will have to be Discussed."

"Excuse me?" Jack said.

"Kiri Law Enforcement Regulations prohibit us from acting under the circumstances until all information is presented before the Enforcement and Security Council, who will then deliberate on the issue. Once they come to a decision, they will give us our orders, which we will then follow."

"And how long does all of that take?" Jack wanted to know.

"Hours, at least," Aniyuv replied mildly.

"Hours?!" Jack exploded, "J'Mil could be long gone by then! Hell, Jonas could be _dead_ by then!"

"I want to find your man alive as much as you do," Aniyuv snapped.

"I doubt that very much," Jack shot back.

"But there is procedure to follow," Aniyuv persisted, "If I go against protocol, I could not only lose my job, I could be arrested myself. That is Kirian law, and I must follow it."

They had left the jail cell where the Jinaz prisoner was being held, and returned to the main room of the Kiri Enforcement Building for section twelve. To Jack, it looked for all the world like a regular police station, complete with Enforcers seated at desks with piles of paperwork. Only the piles were more numerous and of much greater height than any police station on Earth.

Aniyuv went over to what looked to Jack like a giant thermos with a spigot near its base. Taking a mug from the table on which the thermos sat, Aniyuv proceeded to fill it with the weird non-coffee Jack had already become familiar with. He didn't know what it was called, but he did know better than to drink it because Grogan -who had been subjected to drinking it during negotiations- warned him about it.

"Of course, you aren't Kiri Enforcers," Aniyuv told the wall behind the Percolator, "And, as you've already threatened the Community Council, you can hardly get into any deeper trouble."

Jack cocked his head slightly, glancing at Carter and Teal'c, to see if they were hearing what he thought he was hearing. They seemed equally puzzled.

"You were present during the questioning of the Jinaz prisoner, and you know the name of the location where J'Mil is hiding," Aniyuv sipped his non-coffee thoughtfully and added, "If you need further directions, I'm sure that you can find someone to guide you."

Aniyuv turned his head slightly, and Jack followed the look. Ayelas was seated at a desk across the room, filling out paperwork relating to the destruction of her home and property. Jack wasn't sure what she was to do with the paperwork after she filled it out, but that didn't matter to him. When he looked back at Aniyuv, the Enforcer had turned just enough to look at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Once the discussions are at an end, I expect to go to J'Mil's place of residence and find him there, very much alive. Other than that, what happens to him is no concern of mine."

Jack hesitated for a beat, just in case Aniyuv had something else to say. But the Enforcer had turned back towards the wall, and was once again sipping his beverage. Jack realized he and the others had been surreptitiously dismissed.

"You know, I've been meaning to get some exercise lately," Jack said mildly, looking significantly at Carter, "Think I'll take a walk."

"Teal'c and I will join you," Carter replied, "But maybe we should invite Ayelas along, so we don't get lost. The streets around here are very confusing," she looked at Teal'c who gazed back impassively.

"Indeed," he said finally.

The truth was there was nothing confusing about the streets of Kiri, in fact Jack had never seen a more straight-forward layout for a city. The problem was that they didn't know where the street they were looking for was, or how to get to it. That was why they needed Ayelas, because presumably she either knew or she had a map of Kiri they could look at.

When SG-1 drifted over to her, it was clear that Ayelas was in on it.

"I'm told you make a good tour guide," Jack said to Ayelas, "And there are some very interesting streets in your city that we simply must see before we go."

Ayelas smiled, and Jack was startled to recognize her expression. It was one Jonas frequently wore, that not-quite-real sort of smile that said there was something hiding behind it, some truth that was being concealed. It was the plastic smile of a diplomat, and Jack always hated to see it, even when he knew _exactly_ what it was that was being concealed.

"I could use a break from this paperwork," Ayelas said pleasantly, "My hand was beginning to cramp."

Ayelas led the way outside, and SG-1 followed, with Kofield trailing behind. Jack squinted as he was bathed in the light of Guf'yn's sun. Putting on his sunglasses seemed to do nothing. He felt a headache building behind his eyes now, and a glance at Kofield said it was only going to get worse.

"What is Aniyuv up to this time?" Ayelas asked, once they were away from the Enforcement Building.

"This time?" Carter queried.

"Aniyuv is as tired of the Community Director and his Assistant Directors as I am. We are not traitors, we've no more love for the Jinaz or Riktari governments than the Community Council does. But to function within the system of government we have, we have found it necessary to sometimes go outside of the rules."

"And so you know he's up to something because...?" Jack inquired.

Ayelas smiled again, "Because of my work, I have been forced to be involved in politics my entire life. I am expert at reading people, particularly those whom I know well. Like your Jonas Quinn, I can tell more about a person from a look across a room than most people can with a psychologist's report."

Jack hadn't really noticed that about Jonas. He wondered what else he'd failed to notice.

"Most often, Aniyuv has aided me in my endeavors, overlooking things he has caught me doing to avoid having to do the paperwork. He has helped me many times over the years. Now he wishes for me to help you. I find this agreeable. I want to help Jonas if I can."

"Why?" Jack couldn't help but ask.

Instead of answering directly, Ayelas said, "When I first saw him near the Chappa'ai, he frightened me because he looked like the myth our people once worshiped as a god. For just a moment, I found myself believing in the god of my ancestors, or at least in his existence. And I was afraid. But, once I dared to look at him, I saw in his eyes a gentleness greater than any I've ever seen. I doubted, because his eyes were strange to me. But soon I knew what I saw was real."

"So you want to help us because you like Jonas?" Carter inquired.

"In part," Ayelas replied, "Now, what is it that you need from me?"

* * *

Somehow it wasn't surprising to find out that J'Mil resided in an apartment building near where Ayelas used to live. It was a couple of blocks to the south, but close enough to hear the explosions and probably see the rising smoke and dust.

" _Why would the Jinaz bomb a building and then take Jonas alive?"_ Daniel's voice was just becoming a nuisance now, which wasn't all that different from how Jack remembered the man himself.

Danny had never been more of a nuisance than when he was right and Jack knew it. The part of him that knew when Daniel was right and Jack simply didn't want to admit it had now manifested in his consciousness as the voice of Daniel and he didn't like it a bit. But right now it seemed like that part of him was focusing on the wrong thing. Frankly, Jack didn't see how it mattered one way or the other who was responsible for the bombing, just so long as he found Jonas. Far as Jack was concerned, once that was accomplished he and the rest of SG-1 should pick up SG-9 and go home, let the Kirian and Jinaz work out their differences without Earth's interference.

Despite all the wasted time, and the lengthy negotiations between Aniyuv and the Jinaz prisoner, the sun was still high in the sky. Nevertheless, it was getting dark. The odd lighting conditions made it look like hellish ships were sailing in across the sky, but those ships were really just storm clouds. The light made them look sharp and shadowy, not at all as clouds looked on Earth. A heavy wind had kicked up since this morning, and Jack noticed that many of the open windows in various buildings had been covered. It occurred to him only now that there were no window panes in the windows, no glass. Just a hole in the wall. Jack reasoned that he hadn't noticed it because it hadn't been relevant.

Now that he was intending to sneak up on a potential enemy, it was very relevant. A pane of glass could muffle sounds, but an open hole in the wall wouldn't. As they would have to climb two flights of metal stairs to get to the floor J'Mil was said to live on, chances were he would hear them coming, even in spite of the sounds the wind was generating as it blew through the city.

"Is there a back way out of that place?" Jack asked of Ayelas.

She nodded, "At the back of all apartment buildings is an indoor hallway. On the third floor, there are doors to an outdoor balcony with stairs leading down to the alley."

"Wait here," Jack told Ayelas, then turned to the others, "Carter, Teal'c, you go around back. Once you're in position, Kofield and I will take the front."

Carter and Teal'c made a wide arc around the apartment building, making sure they were not in view of the windows at any point. Jack decided to be slightly less cautious. He kept far to the right of the apartment where J'Mil was staying, but he didn't bother trying to go unnoticed by the entire building, just the part of it that concerned him. Once across the street, he and Kofield moved quickly and quietly to the base of the staircase. Jack wondered vaguely if the Kirian had elevators or if everything was stairs. They had comparable technology to Earth, even apparently surpassing it in some ways, but Jack was beginning to pick up on the details that told him they were way behind in others.

Rather than say she and Teal'c were in position, Carter merely keyed her radio, generating static sounds Jack could hear on the other end. The sounds didn't carry as far, and were less likely to attract attention.

Jack would go up the stairs first. Once he was up, he would wait for Kofield to join him before advancing to the door. Kofield nodded his understanding, and Jack set off up the stairs, moving slowly and carefully to avoid making noise on the open metal staircase. He wondered if the stairs were made this way because it was cheaper and easier, or because chances were anyone approaching would make noise, so they worked as an early warning system for people who couldn't afford burglar alarms.

Jack hated climbing stairs, for a number of reasons. First of all, if someone tackled you from above on the stairs, there was no way to properly brace for the impact, you just had to hope the fall didn't break your neck. Stairs were either out in the open (as was the case here), leaving you utterly exposed to anyone and everyone who might want you dead, or else they were extremely closed in, giving you nowhere to go if someone tossed an explosive (or themselves) down at you. Aiming and shooting up or down stairs while you were on them was an absurd activity. Climbing stairs, it was impossible to be completely silent because there always seemed to be that one step that squeaked. Moreover, Jack's knees always put in a few personal complaints on stairs, reminding him that he simply wasn't as young or fit as he'd been in his twenties, or even his thirties. Hell, he was about to kiss his forties goodbye in a few months. He hated stairs for reminding him of it. It was one thing to jokingly pine for retirement, it was quite another for stairs to mock him for lacking the youth that had once been his.

At the top of the stairs, Jack performed an automatic check of the area, then signaled to Kofield to follow him up. There was another flight of stairs after this one. On the one hand, that made it much less likely that J'Mil (assuming he was at home) could have heard them coming. On the other, it meant Jack now had to climb a second flight of stairs just as quietly as he'd climbed the first. Stairs were work, even for a man Kofield's age, especially when you had to be quiet as well as quick. There was a reason people didn't walk silently under ordinary circumstances (and were especially loud on stairs), it was because it took more effort and concentration to move quietly than to just stomp around.

Kofield made it up the stairs, and Jack was somewhat gratified to see the major looked slightly strained. Maybe the stairs were higher and steeper than Jack had figured. Maybe it really was as hard to get up them as Jack thought, and it wasn't just his age telling him that.

After giving himself a couple of seconds to settle and check his surroundings as he'd been trained to, Kofield nodded towards the next flight of stairs. Jack again took the lead. The second flight of stairs felt twice the height of the first, even though Jack knew it was the same number of steps.

But he made it up without incident, and Kofield followed.

Jack considered the merits of knocking before entering J'Mil's apartment. But he remembered the blood Teal'c had found on the ground where Jonas had been attacked. While they were in the Enforcement Building, Aniyuv had showed SG-1 and Kofield the footage caught by the security camera. It had missed everything before Jonas had approached J'Mil with his hands away from his body, showing no inclination towards threat or violence. J'Mil had attacked him anyway.

Jack didn't want to give J'Mil any warning, which the man might use to draw a weapon and attempt to kill them. They needed him alive, but chances were that he had no need of them.

He pointed Kofield to one side of the door and he took up a position on the other. With gestures, he instructed Kofield to kick the door open and then step back for Jack to go through. The disorientation of someone kicking the door open from one angle and then someone else coming in at another angle could buy precious second fractions that could mean the difference between life and death when entering a structure occupied by people who might want you dead.

Obediently, Kofield kicked the door open and then ducked back out of the way.

Jack went through the door. He had managed to catch J'Mil by surprise, but the man was quick. J'Mil had obviously leaped from sitting on his couch when the door banged open. The instant he saw Jack, he bolted. With a P90, Jack might wing him. But while J'Mil was running, he could also wind up killing him, especially as the man slid into the wall and bounced off it as he raced down the hallway of the apartment towards the back.

"Carter, he's comin' your way," Jack said into his radio.

He did not pursue J'Mil. Kofield joined him in the apartment's living room, and they waited. It didn't take long. A handful of seconds passed before the distinct whine of a zat was heard, followed by a hearty thud. Not long after that, Carter arrived with Teal'c following her, an unconscious J'Mil over his shoulder. He dropped the Jinaz spy on the couch.

"Teal'c," Jack sighed, "You realize we need him conscious to question him, don't you?"

Teal'c responded to Jack by offering him one of _those_ looks, and silence.


	16. The Riktari

Jonas appreciated not being knocked unconscious for once, but he was somewhat less appreciative of M'Fumo's (the leader of the Riktari raiding party) insistence that he ride in the trunk of the vehicle. The way M'Fumo explained it, Jonas needed to be out of sight while they were driving through the city of Jinaz, which was apparently where they were. Jonas thought there had to be an easier way to stay out of view, and he especially didn't like that Kevs picked him up and stuffed him in the trunk while he was still protesting, and then not only closed it but locked it as well.

Things had been so chaotic when they'd exited the Jinaz building that Jonas hadn't processed what he'd seen of it until he'd been locked in the trunk of the vehicle long enough to stop trying to find a way out of it. What he realized as he lay curled up in the darkness, being repeatedly knocked around whenever the vehicle sped up, slowed down or took a corner too fast, was that he'd seen that building before.

The building where he'd been held prisoner was a near-perfect replica of the central building in Kiri, at least on the outside. Jonas wished he'd had the chance to see more of Jinaz. Was it also a replica of Kiri? Anywhere else, such a question would seem ludicrous, but here it actually seemed likely.

Jonas didn't know about the rest of the Riktari, but after what happened at the end of the raid he was convinced that M'Fumo was a very bad person. At best, he was a murderous liar. Jonas had not been overfond of the Jinaz, least of all the one who had interrogated him, but he didn't much care for the execution of people who had already surrendered.

Of course, Jonas knew he was soft. He was not made for war, despite having been raised in a world hellbent on it. Death and killing had always scared and sickened him. He had insulated himself as much as possible on Kelowna from the actual reality of war. Though Jonas had changed much in just the last few months, he still couldn't quell the sense of horror at what M'Fumo had done.

It wasn't just the slaughter.

Though M'Fumo otherwise looked nothing like Colonel O'Neill, Jonas' frazzled mind connected that the haircut and color looked a lot like the Colonel, and the eyes were the same color, and he was probably about the same age as O'Neill. But there was a cruelty present in M'Fumo's dark eyes that Colonel O'Neill didn't possess even at his worst. Even when he had looked upon Jonas with contempt and possibly even hate, his eyes hadn't the gleam M'Fumo's did. Instinct bade Jonas be cautious, but experience told him to be bold and strong in this face of this man, who had clearly enjoyed the suffering and fear he'd inflicted on the six captured Jinaz.

After shooting the first, M'Fumo had paused, listening to the survivors beg and plead for their lives. He'd asked no questions, but they had offered to give him any information he wanted. A couple of the Jinaz maintained enough dignity not to weep openly, but most of them cried without shame. As M'Fumo slowly went from person to person, shooting the calmest first, the cries became a desperate wailing. Jonas himself had yelled more than one protest even though he'd known it would do no good, and struggled against the bull-like strength of Kevs even though he had no means of stopping M'Fumo even had he been able to free himself. O'Neill had a darkness in him, but not like M'Fumo, who had been laughing by the time he finished executing the Jinaz prisoners.

Though Jonas had suffered torture at the hands of the Jinaz interrogator, he had never gotten the impression that the man was particularly enjoying himself, merely that he was doing his job to the best of his ability. M'Fumo had obviously enjoyed the raid of the Jinaz base immensely.

Jonas knew it was possible that the Jinaz were far crueler than he'd imagined, perhaps a great deal more evil than he realized. Even so, though Jonas could imagine Colonel O'Neill exhibiting satisfaction at killing Anubis or another Goa'uld, he couldn't exactly picture the Colonel laughing about it, and the Goa'uld were the most evil and dangerous enemy Jonas could think of. Certainly they were more habitually cruel than the Jinaz had been to Jonas, even though they had imprisoned him, beaten him and also deprived him of both food and water during his stay. The last seemed more a matter of neglect than intentional abuse, like it simply hadn't occurred to them to do anything with their prisoner other than confine and question him. Not that their reasons made things any easier for Jonas. But he had spent a lot of his stay either unconscious or being interrogated, so there hadn't been time for much else.

No, Jonas didn't like being the prisoner of the Jinaz at all. But, no matter how bad the Jinaz were, how M'Fumo treated them said more about him as a person than it said about them. To fight, kill or die for a cause was one thing. To actively enjoy killing helpless prisoners was quite another.

* * *

It took awhile for J'Mil to wake up. When he finally did, it seemed somehow like it wasn't worth it. At least, that's how it felt to Sam. It had taken them so long to get here, yet suddenly here had nothing to offer them. It was frustrating and disheartening to know how close they'd come.

When asked about Jonas, J'Mil replied, "We had him, yes. But not anymore."

"He got away?" O'Neill inquired, disbelief in his voice.

Sam felt hurt in place of Jonas at Col. O'Neill's tone, but the fact was that (as far as any of them knew) Jonas had never even been truly imprisoned before, much less escaped. The fact that he couldn't take care of himself was the reason they were here in the first place, though Sam didn't like thinking of it that way. Any of them could have been caught the way Jonas had been, even Teal'c.

"Him?" J'Mil sneered, "That one could not escape a Kirian Discussion room."

J'Mil was sitting up on his couch, and SG-1 was fanned out around him, Kofield standing behind the couch. They all exchanged annoyed looks. From what she'd learned of Kirian Discussion procedure, Sam wasn't sure anyone could escape before the close of a meeting without using a firearm.

"No, he did not escape," J'Mil continued after a pause, "The Haven of Beruth was attacked some hours before you ambushed me. Your soldier should feel privileged to have been held in such a place."

"Attacked by whom?" O'Neill persisted, ignoring the last remark.

"M'Fumo and his men," J'Mil replied.

"And he is?" Col. O'Neill demanded, with obviously growing impatience.

"He calls himself Riktari, as do the Kirian. Anyone with eyes to see knows that the Riktari only use his services. Little do they know that he also uses them. Such is the way of the Riktari."

"Use and use alike, huh?" O'Neill quipped, "Sounds like a breeding ground for paranoia."

"No one trusts any Riktari," J'Mil confirmed, "Least of all the Riktari."

"If none of them trust any of them, how do they ever get anything done?" Kofield inquired.

J'Mil looked over his shoulder at Kofield with obvious contempt.

"If their interests happen to align, they become motivated to work together. And they are all in agreement that the Kirian government's power reaches much too far."

"Isn't that your problem too?" O'Neill asked.

J'Mil glared at him, "We believe the entire system must be eradicated, the Riktari want only to influence. The Jinaz would never stoop to such means."

"Said the spy to the alien," the Colonel pointed out coldly.

"About Jonas," Sam said hurriedly, "Where would the Riktari take him?"

"Assuming you're telling the truth and not just tryin' to throw us off the scent, keep us from trackin' down Jonas before you're through with him," O'Neill remarked.

J'Mil's eyes fairly smoldered with anger, but he did not respond to O'Neill, instead answering Sam.

"The Riktari, for all their pretension of cleverness, would take such a prisoner to only one place."

Colonel O'Neill did not enjoy being given the run around.

" _Where_?" he hissed through his teeth.

"The Kirian deny the truth of our god entirely, but for all that it is the Riktari who are the real monsters. They teach a corrupt and blasphemous version of the truth, creating a twisted religion of their own. That is why they wish only to influence. They have corrupted the ancient teachings of our god, and now seek to corrupt the Kirian to their way of thinking before attempting to suppress the voice of the Jinaz. They know they cannot change us. Well... most of us."

"I'm not interested in your religious wars," the Colonel snapped, grabbing J'Mil by the shirt collar and yanking him to his feet, "Where's Jonas being taken!?"

"The Riktari would take him only to their unholy church, which is at the center of their vile city."

O'Neill let go of J'Mil, and shoved him back to a sitting position on the couch. Kiri itself was a big city, but at least they had their foot in the door here. They had no idea where Riktari was. Even if they could get directions to the city itself, it was unlikely they would get in there so easily as they had gotten in here. They had all been hoping Jonas was hidden somewhere in Kiri, just as J'Mil had been hiding.

"You might as well give up now," J'Mil told them, "The Riktari will break him to their will, until he either serves their purpose or dies in resisting them. Many Jinaz soldiers have gone the same way."

Sam hesitated to ask, but she knew someone had to, "What purposes?"

"Who do you think was responsible for bombing Kiri? The Jinaz? We would not attack a neighborhood with children and families. We would attack the government buildings. The Riktari? And risk their own personnel? Certainly not. But they have ways of breaking the will, and twisting the mind to suit their purposes. In all likelihood, those bombs were set by former Jinaz soldiers, or maybe even Kirian citizens that the Riktari got their claws into."

"Brainwashing?" Sam inquired, but J'Mil seemed not to recognize the word.

She remembered that the Kirian used Goa'uld words often, and tried again, using the closest approximation that she knew.

"Za'tarc?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Colonel O'Neill flinch at mention of the hated word.

"We do not know how they do it," J'Mil replied, "All we know is that they gain control over others somehow, and force them to do their bidding. They never survive long enough for us to find out. Even if we can take them alive, they escape, are broken out, or else killed in their cell. You'd best face it; you'll never get your man back from the Riktari. They own him now."

* * *

When Jonas had asked if he was a prisoner, M'Fumo told him that he shouldn't think of it that way. It was merely that he was not familiar to any of the Riktari soldiers guarding the doors, and that they would likely shoot him on sight should he leave the room M'Fumo and Kevs put him in.

Then M'Fumo had smiled that unsettling smile of his, and Jonas knew that he was lying. Jonas was in fact very much a prisoner of the Riktari. Perhaps his cell didn't have a locked door or barred window (indeed, there was no window at all), but he was a prisoner nonetheless. The look M'Fumo gave him suggested that the man wanted Jonas to try to leave and get killed doing it. Not because he had any reason to dislike Jonas, but because he was the kind of person who enjoyed death. Jonas had spent several painful hours locked in the trunk of the Riktari vehicle before they arrived at their destination. He could only assume they had driven him from Jinaz to Riktari. When he'd finally been let out, the vehicle had been parked in a garage-like area. The thing was, it looked just like the prison in Jinaz where Jonas had been held before.

It wasn't that he'd seen a garage in Jinaz, or that this room looked exactly like his cell there. No, this room was about twice the size, and had several pieces of furniture in it. But it also had the distinct flavor of Goa'uld architecture about it. The deep blackish-gray color, the off-kilter ceiling, the golden hued support beams... all of it was Goa'uld design. But Jonas instantly knew that this building, like the one he'd been in before, lacked naquadah. Either it was not present at all, or very minimally.

The Riktari had not asked Jonas anything about how long he'd been held captive or how he'd been treated, and provided only a thermos of that awful coffee knockoff Jonas was already far too familiar with. Jonas didn't feel free to ask for anything else.

Jonas would have been happy to never see that faux coffee again as long as he lived, but the fact was that by now he was desperately thirsty, and a thermos of Percolate sitting on an otherwise barren wooden table in the middle of his not-prison-cell was his only option for quenching that thirst.

His body rebelled immediately, but he drank as much as he could stand, telling himself it was better than nothing. He spent the night regretting that decision lying on a bed made of strips of metal woven together that probably was meant to have a mattress atop it

That night, he learned never to drink Guf'yn coffee without food, no matter how thirsty he was. His body was wracked with cramps that were as bad as they were unpredictable. The coolness of the room he was kept in bothered him enough to make him shiver, a result of the lack of nutrition which normally gave his body the fuel it needed to cope with mildly uncomfortable temperatures. The metal strips he lay on dug into him. Every breath he took, and every tremor that ran through him sent fresh pain across the wounds on his back.

Even not including the other factors, Jonas was exhausted from fear. The deepest kind of fear too. Not that of being hurt or killed, but of the Unknown. The Riktari scared him far more than the Jinaz, not only because of their actions thus far, but because he did not know what they wanted, or what they intended to do with him.

Jonas couldn't sleep, but he tried to keep as still as possible, make his eyes stay closed and slow his racing thoughts. He failed on all three counts, trembling uncontrollably and jumping at every sound, his brain galloping wildly without direction or purpose, bringing to his conscious mind thoughts that did not relate to each other, irrelevant observations and confusing memory fragments that didn't fit together. Jonas knew the prolonged state of fear and deprivation, combined with a vacuum of actual knowledge, was breaking down his mental processes.

He was no good under pressure. He never had been.

The cramping pain had barely begun to subside in the morning when M'Fumo decided to drop by. Jonas knew it was on purpose. Having spent the night awake and in pain had exhausted him, his clothes were damp with the cold sweats he'd suffered in the night. He was uncomfortable, dizzy from fatigue and weaker than ever. If M'Fumo wanted to force information out of him, the condition he was in made now the best time to do it.

The only thing was Jonas couldn't imagine was what information M'Fumo could possibly want from him. Jonas' brain sluggishly tried to formulate a coherent thought but fear, pain, hunger and exhaustion had all combined and turned his own body against him and his powers of observation -though still sharp- were now unfocused and nothing he saw put itself together or made sense.

He managed to sit on the edge of the 'bed', but couldn't make himself get up when M'Fumo came in and took a chair at the table. M'Fumo brought his own mug of fake coffee, and Jonas winced involuntarily as the smell of it hit him and sent his gut into a frenzy of protest. Jonas blinked rapidly as a distraction until his insides seemed to accept that he wasn't about to imbibe more of that vile liquid.

M'Fumo grinned at Jonas' obvious discomfort, and took a long drink from his mug. He seemed to find it amusing every time Jonas tensed and gasped as a result of the pain he felt internally.

"What do you want?" Jonas asked, not even trying to keep the disgust from his voice.

"Oh," M'Fumo replied, eyes narrowing as he took another sip of coffee, "I already have _exactly_ what I want. Now it is only a matter of time."

He knew he was being baited, but Jonas asked anyway, "A matter of time before what?"

"Before the budding alliance between Kiri and Earth comes crashing down. All thanks to you."

"Me?" Jonas asked, "What did I do?"

M'Fumo smiled over the lip of his mug and said, "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

It shouldn't have chilled Jonas as it did, even with M'Fumo's ghoulish smile and eyes alight with cruel thoughts looking at him. But the last time Jonas had done nothing, Daniel Jackson had paid the ultimate price. Maybe it was just the fatigue, but Jonas found himself wondering who had died this time as a consequence of his inability to act. M'Fumo's smile broadened into a grin.


	17. Gunshot

There are a lot of sounds that are horrible to wake up to. The sound of a fire alarm warning you that your house is about to burn down. The sound of police sirens outside your house. The sound of someone or something banging into your bedroom door. A crack of thunder as loud as an explosion outside your window. But for Jack, the sound of an M9 being fired once was always the source of his worst nightmare. It was not the loudest sound, or the longest lasting, or the most piercing. But it was the sound that had immediately preceded the death of his son, and that made it the worst sound imaginable to Jack when he didn't know who had fired the M9 and for what purpose.

After questioning J'Mil, Jack and the rest of SG-1 had been forced to return to Ayelas. She in turn spoke to Aniyuv. Ayelas knew where Riktari was, but getting into the "church" would be no easy matter. Aniyuv informed them that there were Kirian operatives at work in Riktari.

"But they are officially denied by the Kirian government, and operate outside the normal chain of command. They cannot be contacted through regular channels," Aniyuv had said, "It will take time to make contact and let them know that an extraction is needed."

"We want to be there," Carter had said, but Jack knew what Aniyuv would say.

With a shake of his head and sympathy in his eyes, Aniyuv explained, "There's almost no way of getting you out of Kiri undetected, much less all the way to Riktari. You'd be killed before you reached the outer wall of Riktari. We can't risk the security of our operatives trying to bring in new people. Do not worry, they are well trained. If Jonas Quinn is in Berith's Church, they will retrieve him."

Jack didn't like that response any more than Carter did, but he recognized that he'd reached the extent of his authority. He'd pushed the Kirian as hard as he could without them turning on him. He was too far out in the field with too few people to try and take on one city, forget tackling two. For the moment, there was nothing for SG-1 to do except wait, and trust Aniyuv.

Because there was no other reasonable place to house them, the SG-personnel had been given a room in the CN&D building to operate out of. SG-9 was there waiting for them when SG-1 and Kofield trudged in after their waste of time operation.

"Talking to Community Director Whilbarr hasn't been easy," Grogan had told Jack, "He and the rest of the Community Council are very upset about what's been going on around here. We're lucky that their intense love of paperwork doesn't leave them the freedom to disarm and arrest us without filling out several forms in triplicate and getting them signed by people belonging to eight different branches of their government. But I recommend we leave before they do."

"We're not leaving until we have Jonas back," had been Jack's fierce reply.

He would never admit it aloud, but inside he knew that Grogan was right. Looking the young lieutenant in the eye, it was obvious that Grogan knew it too. Their time here was limited, getting shorter by the second. If they stayed, they would eventually be arrested, possibly executed, depending on how the justice and legal system of Kiri worked. Jack had to personally face the facts, even if he refused to admit what he knew to anyone. It might not be possible to get Jonas back at all.

That thought had been at the forefront of his mind when Jack went to sleep. Perhaps it was because of this that he dreamed of having a conversation with Daniel.

"Hey, Jack."

In the dream, Jack had walked through his front door and turned to go into the living room. Daniel was already there, wearing that stupid white sweater he'd been wearing when Jack saw him after being captured and tortured by Ba'al. Except then he hadn't been sure if Daniel was real or not. This time he knew he was having a dream, because some part of him was still awake enough to know where he was, and what was happening in reality. This was his subconscious messing with him. Still.

"Daniel," Jack said, his dream self operating independently of him, walking into the room and accepting a beer from Daniel, "You're in my house. Why are you in my house?"

"The question is, why are you?" Daniel inquired, taking a drink from the beer bottle he was holding.

Jack narrowed his eyes, and didn't answer. It didn't seem fair that a person in a dream he was having seemed to also know this was a dream. Noticing something curious about the label on Daniel's beer, Jack cocked his head to the side and tried to read it.

"Danny, why are there Goa'uld symbols on your beer?" Jack asked.

Daniel turned the bottle, read the label and smiled.

"It says 'Metal into Gold' and beneath that 'He of Three Names'."

"You know, I think I liked you better as a hallucination," Jack said, examining his own beer, which had nothing but the usual label on it.

"Jack," Daniel spoke the name slowly, his smile fading, "Why are you doing this?"

"Having a dream? Probably because I'm asleep. It happens."

"No," Daniel shook his head, "I mean why are you doing what you're doing on Guf'yn? You've been reckless in the past, but never this blindly foolish. You're destroying any chance you have of getting Jonas back... and you know it too. Why?"

"If you were really Daniel, you wouldn't ask me that," Jack replied.

"Jonas never wanted to be here, and there's no reason he should be. You knew that but... you sent him here anyway. You've done it before too. You've sent him on every mission you can find the slightest excuse to attach him to. He's been in the field more in the last six months than you have in the last year and a half. You're purposely putting him in potential danger, and working him into the ground. And for what?" Daniel didn't raise his voice. He never had to.

In reality, Jack would have cut Daniel off. He'd have been angry. Like always, he would have been angry because Daniel was pointing out a truth Jack didn't want to admit, even to himself. He didn't like Jonas, didn't want him around. Jonas' presence reminded Jack of Daniel constantly. Jack had never wanted a replacement for Daniel, and had done his best to avoid getting one. But what he disliked the most wasn't that Jonas didn't measure up to Daniel, it was that it was obvious -given time and opportunity- he just might. Someday, Jonas was going to be strong enough to go head to head in an argument with Jack... and be right. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday...

Jack didn't know why that should upset him. Even if Jonas acquired all of Daniel's skills, not just the knowledge contained in his notes, he would never _be_ Daniel. He could not replace Daniel as a person, only as a resource. Was it just that Jack was afraid he'd be betraying the sacred nature of his friendship with Daniel if he let another person in as he'd let Daniel? Daniel had never been like the others. Daniel knew Jack better than anyone else ever could. They understood each other.

But was it really possible some part of him wanted to destroy Jonas? Jack knew himself only too well. Of course it was. Hell, some part of him had wanted Daniel dead the moment he laid eyes on that geeky little archaeologist with the big glasses and the allergies. That had been especially true after Daniel's first major screw-up. That part of Jack hadn't gone away, Daniel had just beaten it back until Jack was finally forced to not only accept Daniel, but count the man as his closest friend.

A friend Jonas was indirectly and unintentionally responsible for killing. Jack knew it wasn't Jonas' fault, but some of him still blamed the young Kelownan for what had happened, for what Jonas' people had tried to do to Daniel, for the sacrifice they had forced Daniel to make.

"Come on, Jack," Daniel said, "I made that choice and you know it."

"Ah, Daniel," Jack shook his head irritably, but Daniel interrupted.

"You can't save Jonas if you don't want to, Jack."

"Maybe I don't like Jonas, but I'm not tryin' to get him killed. You think I'd put all that time in on weapon's training if I didn't want him alive?"

"I think you've convinced yourself that you want him alive when you don't."

"Well you're wrong!" Jack exploded furiously, "I'm doing everything I can-"

"To ensure that no person from Earth is ever allowed to set foot on this planet again!" Daniel's eyes blazed with anger to match Jack's, though he still did not raise his voice or even rise from the couch.

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it?" Daniel asked, his eyes softening and his gentle voice unbearably understanding, _"Isn't it?"_

It was then that the sound of the M9 being fired broke through and shattered Jack's dream.

Jack's heart thundered in his ears. It took only a moment to assess that the shot had not come from within the room itself, but somewhere else. With only a brief few words, Teal'c conveyed that it had, in fact, come from outside the building itself. Jack wasn't the only one wakened by the sound.

For a moment in the semi-darkness, there was organized chaos as everyone went for cover. An instant later, Jack asked for a headcount. Each man in turn reported in. All were present and accounted for. All instinctively touched the holster where their own M9 was kept, confirming that none of their weapons were missing. There were no further shots from outside, so Jack eventually decided to investigate with the rest of SG-1, ordering SG-9 and Kofield to remain behind.

Everyone on-world right now except for Teal'c was carrying an M9. But who would be firing one here and now? SG-7 had left long ago, and SG-3 had radioed in to confirm that they'd gone back through the Stargate hours ago. SG-3 was of course still positioned at the Stargate. That left only Jonas.

Jack wildly hoped that Jonas had somehow escaped, somehow made his way here, somehow solved all their problems for them by his arrival. But a more rational part of him knew that M9 could be in just about anyone's hands now, the least likely hands being Jonas Quinn's.

Outside, everything was rendered in shades of black, deep gray and darkest blue hues. There was still a moon up, but storm-clouds blotted it out. A terrible cold wind cut through the waning night, Jack felt it even through his jacket. The storm arrived with a baleful howl of thunder unlike any Jack had ever heard. For an instant, Jack thought they were under attack from above and reflexively looked up. The sky flashed pure white for a split second, leaving Jack with spots in his eyes.

Squinting through the renewed darkness, Teal'c was the one to see the prone figure first.

"O'Neill! There!" he shouted over the sound of the wind, which had gained a voice of its own.

Just down the street, on the sidewalk outside the city's central building was a figure lying motionless. The wind tore at the loose fabric of their clothing, as if trying to drag them away. SG-1 advanced cautiously, knowing the shooter might still be around. When they got within a certain distance, Carter was able to recognize who it was, and she broke into a run.

They had to get a little closer before Jack was also sure of who he was seeing. By then, Carter had reached the body. She checked for a pulse. White fabric seemed stained deepest black in the night, but a new flash of lightning revealed the lie and showed the true red of the spreading pool of blood beneath her. White blond hair, so vibrant it had seemed to glow in life, now lay lank and pale. It was then that the rain started, darkening the hair and spreading the stain of blood from the center mass where the bullet had penetrated. Ayelas lay on her back, her limbs splayed out around her, her hair spread fan-like beneath her head, almost as if someone had posed her for a photo instead of shooting her in the chest.

"Carter?" Jack asked, but Carter shook her head no.

Ayelas was dead.

The rain didn't just come down, it poured like a waterfall. As Jack looked around, searching for he knew not what, it fell in sheets off the bill of his cap. Jack hadn't known Ayelas very well, but the woman he'd met seemed feisty and kind and beautiful and good. She had not been a soldier, she had only been someone looking to do the right thing, and she'd earned a bullet for her good deed.

It might seem reasonable to think maybe Ayelas hadn't been killed for her connection to the teams from Earth, but the truth was laid out in blood. Ayelas had been shot by a Beretta nine millimeter, a semiautomatic pistol with a fifteen round magazine and a safety to prevent accidental discharge. Jack had never seen a weapon off-world that resembled the M9. It was exclusively an Earth-made weapon.

Jack realized the bullet was what he'd been looking for on the ground the past few seconds. He was hoping he was wrong, that somehow he'd misheard, that it hadn't been an M9, that it wasn't a bullet that had killed Ayelas.

It felt like a hundred years had gone by, but it was less than thirty seconds. Before Jack, Carter or Teal'c could begin talking to each other, trying to piece together what had happened and why, the Kirian Enforcers showed up, including Aniyuv.

"Stop! You are under arrest," Aniyuv's voice was loud and clear, even in the storm.

SG-1 reacted, but there were many Enforcers, and they closed in with professional rapidity. At Jack's nod, Carter and Teal'c stood down. Here and now was not the time or place for a shootout. There were just three of them, and they'd been caught in the open with their weapons holstered. They were outnumbered, and the Enforcers already had their weapons drawn and aimed.

Aniyuv stepped closer to Jack, dark eyes blazing in fury.

"She trusted you," Aniyuv hissed, "Why did you kill her?"

"We did not do this," Jack said, enunciating every word.

"Ayelas is dead, and you are standing over her body. What am I to think?"

"That we heard a noise and went to investigate?" Jack suggested.

"Really, Colonel," Aniyuv spat, "You came into this city threatening to kill. You were the only ones out, the only ones who would have even known to look for Ayelas here."

"What are you talking about?" Jack demanded, as an Enforcer took his weapons.

"Ayelas always went for a walk before second moonset. Only a handful of people knew about her habit. Jonas Quinn was one of them," Aniyuv responded.

"Jonas didn't do this," Carter exclaimed as her hands were cuffed behind her.

"I did not say he did," Aniyuv told her, his voice a deadly sort of calm, "But he could easily have passed what he knew on to the person who did."

"How do you know he knew?" Jack asked.

"I always watch for Ayelas," Aniyuv said, then corrected himself, "Watched for Ayelas. I did not feel she was entirely safe out by herself at night. To ease my concerns, she consented to walk by the CN&D building at a certain time every day. A few days ago, I saw that she had a companion. Your Jonas Quinn. She doubtless told him of her daily routine."

One of the Enforcers pulled Jack's M9 from its holster and handed it to Aniyuv.

"Look, Aniyuv. I know she was your friend. I know you're hurting, and angry, looking for someone to blame. But think for a second. Jonas was carrying an M9. You know for a fact he was caught by J'Mil, who you know to be a Jinaz spy. You know from J'Mil that Jonas was taken from the Jinaz by the Riktari. Anyone from either group could have the weapon that killed Ayelas."

"The M9?" Aniyuv guessed, for it was the only word he did not recognize in Jack's speech.

"The M9," Jack confirmed, "Just like the one you're holding now."

"For what reason would the Jinaz or Riktari kill Ayelas? And with one of your weapons?"

"Maybe they don't like the fact that we were makin' friends with Kiri. Maybe that makes 'em feel threatened," Jack replied neutrally, "You know them better than I do."

Aniyuv's expression changed to one of thought, but Jack didn't like the deep anger that remained on the man's face. The rain poured, the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed. Aniyuv came to a decision.

"Perhaps you were framed. Or perhaps you are working with the Jinaz or more likely Riktari, as deception is their best talent. Either way, I cannot let you go freely in my city," he looked to the Enforcers holding the three prisoners, "Take them to a holding cell. This is now a matter for the Enforcement and Security Council."

"Why the hell would we shoot Ayelas!?" Jack shouted, "If we were working for the Jinaz or Riktari and pretending to be your friends to gain your trust, why would we have done any of the things we've done here so far? Why would we have held guns on your people? Why would we shoot Ayelas!? WHY, Aniyuv, WHY WOULD WE DO THAT?"

But Aniyuv wasn't listening. As Jack and the others were led away, the Enforcer knelt down beside the body of his friend. His body shook slightly, and he bowed his head in mourning. He did not look at them as they were taken away. He did not even appear to remember they were there.


	18. Remembered

The news that Ayelas was dead hit Jonas like a punch in the gut. Jonas didn't have to ask M'Fumo why. The why was pretty obvious. The death of Ayelas by an SGC issued M9 would prove that the people from Earth were violent and untrustworthy. There would be no more negotiating with Earth now. At best, the people on this side of the Stargate would be sent home. At worst, they would be executed.

Even once Dr. Jackson had been cleared of sabotaging the naquadria bomb, relations between Kelowna and Earth were strained. In this case, as M'Fumo described it, Jonas had been seen leaving the scene of an explosion in a residential area of Kiri with a known Jinaz operative. Suspicions would fly. What if Earth was allied with the Jinaz? What if they intended to infiltrate Kiri and take over? A Kirian woman had taken them into her home, and now one of them had murdered her.

Ayelas was dead.

That fact sent Jonas' mind into spasms of incomprehension. Jonas hadn't known her for long, but she was like him in many ways, and he knew she could have become his friend, given time. Any death was tragic, but the death of someone he had known, had wanted to be friends with, that hit much harder. Especially as he knew her to be gentle and friendly and smart and skilled.

And she had been ruthlessly murdered by someone working for M'Fumo, if not the man himself.

Even if the Kiri were smart enough to suspect that the SG-personnel had been framed, they could never entirely trust that. It gradually dawned on Jonas just what that meant for _him_. By now his GDO code would have been disabled, he'd been out of contact and in enemy hands for too long. His way back to Earth was the teams still on-world. If they were sent through the Stargate, he had no way back.

He felt selfish, thinking that way now, but he couldn't help it. Earth was not his home, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it was, but the thought of never seeing it again... He'd already given up his home in the name of something bigger than his country's border disputes, something greater than himself. To leave Earth and the few friends he had made there behind was an unbearable sentence. Whatever happened to him, Jonas did not want to be alone. Not again.

"So as you can see," M'Fumo said, "Your role is already complete."

"Why take me at all?" Jonas asked numbly, "You didn't need me for this."

"No, I didn't," M'Fumo agreed, "But I had my orders. You were to be taken alive."

Jonas told himself to ask who'd given M'Fumo his orders, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He was tired, his body was abused, his emotions were raw. He couldn't think anymore. His thoughts were just a tangled pile of incomplete concepts, broken ideas and memories brought to surface by grief. He couldn't process anymore right now, but his damned brain kept chugging away, absorbing every detail of everything around him and mercilessly taking the pieces of information he had and trying to force them together into a picture that made sense.

If he could only think clearly for a moment... actually he didn't know what clear thinking would get him, but at the very least it might bring some amount of relief, which was at present nowhere in sight.

Absurdly, his mind latched onto the central buildings that seemed common to all the cities. The interior design, like that of a Goa'uld ship, but lacking the naquadah. The Kiri's obsession with science being done in Goa'uld or not at all. It couldn't possibly matter now, but he was thinking about it anyway. It was the only thing he could think about that didn't hurt. Bizarrely, he found himself asking what seemed like it was the least relevant question he could possibly ask just now.

"Why?" Jonas asked.

"Why what?" M'Fumo looked amused by the pain in Jonas' voice.

"Why bomb the building I was in, and then go to such lengths to take me from the Jinaz alive?"

"You fool," M'Fumo laughed deeply, "That wasn't us. Not the Riktari."

"Then who?" Jonas wanted to know, "Dreu said the Jinaz didn't do it. Who else is there?"

"You," M'Fumo replied, "Or your people."

"No," Jonas shook his head, "No, it wasn't us. That much I do know."

"Then perhaps it was vengeance brought down upon Kiri by the god of the Jinaz and Riktari."

"Not your god?"

"After taking enough power, anyone can declare themselves to be god," M'Fumo told him dismissively, "Now, the Riktari are quite finished with you, and I have my orders on what's to be done with you. We're going on a little trip, you and I."

"Where?" Jonas asked.

M'Fumo didn't answer, he only offered a smile that made Jonas' blood run cold.

* * *

"We're through, aren't we, sir?" Kofield asked quietly.

Aniyuv had rounded up everyone from the SGC, not just SG-1. Now they waited in prison holding cells, two to a cage. Jack and Teal'c were housed together, Kofield and Carter were across the aisle, with some of Grogan's team next to them and the rest in the cell beside that.

It was a typical prison cell, Jack observed. Beige, barred windows, three sides secured with iron bars, the fourth was composed of the outside wall. The Kirian might have concealed doors in most places, but their prison doors looked like any old cell doors.

They'd been searched, stripped, searched again and then given back their clothes. Jack didn't like it, but he'd been in prison before, and knew there wasn't much point in resisting what was obviously standard procedure. Aniyuv had supervised everything, including the locking of the cell doors, his expression set and grim, his dark eyes unreadable. Then they'd been left alone in their cells, probably awaiting the conclusion of the Enforcement and Security Council's deliberations.

Gah, politics. Jack hated politics more than anything.

And that, he realized, was another reason he'd needed Daniel so much. The man had the heart of a lion, hidden behind the voice of a lamb. Daniel could be fierce and formidable, or he could be meek and amenable as the situation required. He'd even once posed successfully as a Goa'uld slave, which Jack could only imagine took a great deal of pride swallowing and an excessive amount of groveling. Pretending to be someone he wasn't had never gone well for Jack. He was just himself, and politics was beyond him. He hated to admit it, but Jonas was good. Too damned good. That shit eating grin that always made Jack want to punch him was probably the thing he hated most about Jonas, and that was what the team so desperately needed when dealing with situations just like this one.

Jack remembered that Daniel got that look sometimes when asked what some alien had said. Daniel would smile that idiotic smile and calmly admit that he had no idea what was going on. But with Daniel there had always been just the slightest undercurrent of a growl, an admission of annoyance beneath the facade of spinelessness. Jonas never offered that.

" _Because he worked for a politician. He was trained for politics, I wasn't. I just happened to have an amount of experience to draw on,"_ Why couldn't Daniel just leave him alone?

Jack closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Headache?" Carter, across the aisle, inquired.

"You might say that," Jack said, sighing deeply and forcing himself to open his eyes.

On the cot across from where he was sitting, Kofield's jaw was clenched, his brow furrowed. Kofield had been out in this sunlight longer than any of them, and evidently was reaching his limit on the migraine inducing rays. He was right though, they wouldn't be here much longer one way or another.

Outside, the storm raged on. The temperature had dropped, and the cell lacked any sort of heater. Even with his jacket, Jack felt the cold right down to his joints. The rain couldn't get in, but that didn't stop the wind from trying to throw it through the windows. The wind itself managed to just sneak in, and whistled overhead. Jack closed his eyes again.

Jack knew what Daniel would say if the voice in his head really was Daniel instead of his own subconscious. Jack felt like beating himself up, but Daniel would tell him he couldn't have foreseen this, that he shouldn't blame himself, and that what he did from here on out was what counted.

Jack had lost his son, Daniel his parents when he was just a child. Two different kinds of loss, but each was powerful and life altering. The pain of loss was what they had in common. But Daniel, despite what his childhood had been like, came out a better person. Without Daniel, Jack had only been trying to self-destruct. It wasn't fair that he was now the one left. Jack hadn't been able to cope, and had effectively abandoned his wife. Daniel's had been taken from him, tortured and then put to death. From start to finish, Daniel had fought hard his whole life, and in the end everything had been taken from him. Jack had desperately tried to screw his life up, and yet he was the one still here. It wasn't fair.

" _I'm not dead,"_ Daniel's voice persisted, _"I'm ascended. I chose this, and_ you _let me."_

"Whatever the hell that means," Jack muttered.

"Sir?" Kofield inquired.

Jack opened his eyes and looked at the major. He realized Kofield had only heard him mumble, but not understood what he said. His brain scrambled for something rational he could have said, something that wasn't him responding to a ghost in his memory.

"I was wondering how much detergent it would take to get the smell out of these sheets," Jack said, patting the cot he was sitting on with one hand.

The fabric (beige, of course) was scratchy and had a definite odor they'd all been ignoring. It wasn't the sort of thing Jack would normally mentioned, but it was the only thing he could think of.

Kofield smirked, realizing Jack was trying to make light of a bad situation. But Carter, looking at Jack through the bars, knew better. Sometimes it seemed she could see right through him. He tried to meet her gaze, but found himself looking away towards the door to the jail room.

* * *

Jonas had no inkling of the storm until he was thrust out into it. By then the sun was up, but its light was muffled behind the raging curtain of black clouds. The swath of blue that coated the world was enough to send a knife of pain through Jonas' head, and his legs folded under him.

Kevs, dragging him by the left arm, prevented Jonas from going down. Kevs dragged Jonas forward and the stricken Kelownan cried out as strain was placed on his injured shoulder. He tried to get his legs under him, but it was all he could do to just close his eyes and try to wait out the pain that seemed to flow from the center of his brain, spreading to every inch of him.

Jonas suddenly becoming dead weight did nothing to slow Kevs down. Dimly, Jonas realized that the only detail he'd absorbed about Kevs was the man's sheer size and strength. That wasn't like him. His fraying mental faculties suddenly felt it very important for him to actually look at his captor, as if knowing the man's eye color might somehow save him. He knew it wouldn't, but he tried to look anyway. Tried, and failed. The second his eyes were open enough to absorb the surrounding light, the fierce agony in his head notched up, and he screamed. Kevs ignored him.

Yanking Jonas off the ground by his arm, Kevs threw the Kelownan into the trunk of a vehicle.

Jonas was already so soaked with sweat, he didn't even realize that there was rain falling. It wasn't until the trunk slammed closed and he heard the rattle of drops bouncing off the slick metal that he realized that the calm was finally over and the storm had really arrived.

The engine of the vehicle roared, and there was a kickback that sent a tremor through it that Jonas felt rattle in his bones. He closed his eyes, refusing to cry out again. He was angry with himself for not being able to think, for not escaping, for not saving Ayelas, for even being here in the first place. But that wasn't the source of his frustration just now. It was the stupidest thing to be annoyed about, and he knew it, but he couldn't help it. Jonas was mad that, even held prisoner, he was still being tossed around like a hot potato. It seemed he couldn't change hands and locations fast enough for anyone.

The rain fell from the sky, the thunder roared in the clouds, lightning struck so hard and fast Jonas could see it even through the cracks between the vehicle body and the trunk door, and inside he raged. He was angry with himself, with the Jinaz, with the Riktari, with the whole damned world.

He realized that he'd finally become too upset to be afraid anymore. Pain and exhaustion and hunger and thirst and horror and a profound sense of loss and guilt and confusion and terror had finally overtaken each other until each burned the other out and all that was left was a kind of insanity.

 _Dr. Jackson would not tolerate this. He would not let this continue. He would find a way to make them stop. To stop the torture, and the killing and the kidnapping and the bombing. He'd find a way._

Dr. Jackson had found a way on Kelowna. In a single heartbeat, he'd chosen to give his life. Jonas did not believe that his people would ever let him come back home, but he was sure that -one day- they would recognize the sacrifice Dr. Jackson had made, and understand why he'd made it.

Jonas not only didn't have that kind of courage, he wasn't even smart enough to understand what it was that was happening here, or strong enough to save himself. That was probably what Colonel O'Neill had known all along. No wonder the leader of SG-1 had never accepted him. He wasn't good enough to be SG-1. Here in the field, finally given the opportunity to prove himself without urging or guidance from anyone, and what had he done? He'd gotten himself caught, and utterly failed to escape or hinder the plans of his captors because he didn't even know what those were. He'd failed at everything.

That's what he was really angry about.

Somewhere deep in his mind, he felt time ticking away, but he wasn't sure why it mattered anymore.

* * *

Sam could see right through Jack. Sometimes she wished she couldn't. She loved how funny he could be, but didn't like that she could see he was often using humor to conceal pain, and also to cover up any traces of his own intelligence. She knew that here, now, in this moment, Jack was thinking of Daniel. She didn't need to know why to recognize the pain in his eyes. She'd seen that pain lurking there before, but only Daniel seemed to know what it really was, and only he seemed able to shut it off, if only for a moment. Only Daniel had ever not only been able to _see_ through Jack, but actually _get_ through to him.

If Daniel had been here, he'd have been looking for a way out. Not to save himself. Never to save himself. But to save a member of the team. Daniel would give anything for his team, for the people he loved more dearly than life itself. But it wasn't like they were so special. Daniel had a great heart, big enough to hold the whole universe. He'd give his life for a stranger, such was his great capacity for love. He had courage like no one else Sam had ever met, and she missed him dearly.

If he were here, he would have been trying to reason with Aniyuv, with anyone who would listen. Being Daniel, he might've actually succeeded. Failing at that, he would have been tearing himself up, furious at his own helplessness. And Jack, Sam, maybe even Teal'c, would have been distracted from their own fears in trying to ease Daniel's suffering. Daniel's one weakness had been that he loved too strongly, felt too deeply, and cared too damned much. To see Daniel's heart breaking would have galvanized the team into action. As it was, Sam only felt a keen sense of absence.

Daniel was gone, and now they were losing Jonas too.

Jack might not have liked Jonas much, but even he knew the value of that tremendous heart. Officially it was Jonas' skills as a diplomat, his ability to easily pick up new languages both by hearing and reading, and the fact that he was the only one with the ability to memorize all of Daniel's notes and then build from there. Unofficially, it was the deep running feeling, the ability to expect the worst but have the courage to risk seeing the best in people, to allow that intensely personal vulnerability and risk not only life and limb, but heart and soul as well. That's what SG-1 needed. That's what had been lost with Daniel, what might've been found in Jonas if only any of them had taken the time to look.

Even Sam had ruthlessly pushed him away at first. She hadn't wanted to ever let someone with that brilliant spark of life and love and wonder to ever touch her soul again. She couldn't bear losing that sort of person from her life a second time. But Jonas was impossible to hate. Even Teal'c liked him.

And now they were through.

Sam blinked back unwonted tears. She hated that she'd let herself feel so much, and was startled to discover that she had. She wondered if it was because she'd come to think of Jonas as her friend, or if it was because -by having known Daniel for a time- her heart had grown just a little.

 _Dammit, Daniel, why did we let you do this to us?_

In this business, you couldn't afford to feel too much. At least, that's what her father had always told her about the Air Force, what all her instructors had said, what she herself had firmly believed. At the first flutter of attraction to Jack, Sam had made herself turn on him, tried to ensure a strictly professional relationship by means of acting cold. He'd responded in kind, or tried to.

But Daniel... Daniel hadn't had the training, and he didn't believe in it. Daniel had never once been afraid to feel and -despite all the training, all the experience, and her own system of belief- Sam found herself melting and joining Daniel's world, at least a little. In Daniel's world, it wasn't a crime to feel. Feeling didn't stop him, didn't even slow him down. Sometimes it wounded him, but it also let him experience more wonder and joy than the rest of them could ever dream of. The risk of pain, of feeling rejection, of sorrow and fear and even the heart rending agony that came with killing if you let it, all of it had been worth it to him. He'd never left behind that part of himself that felt, and he'd never let any of his team mates deny the emotions they themselves experienced.

He'd opened the door to a whole new way of thinking, and being, and Sam hadn't been prepared. The tears she resisted now were because of him, but they were for herself, for her loss.

She looked across the aisle and into the cell where Jack and Kofield were, and knew Jack felt the same way, even if his eyes didn't shine with tears as hers probably did.

But inside she knew. If you built a wall to keep out the pain, that wall also kept out love. If you isolated yourself from feeling, you locked yourself out of who you really were, and put up a barrier to keep other people away. And then one day that wall would fall, and crush you under it, one way or another.

Even in the midst of searing pain, Daniel had known that beauty would come after it, even if it seemed brief and he had to wait a very long time to see it. But only by feeling such pain was he be able to recognize beauty when it passed by. That was the truth Daniel had known, had always understood.

That was what he had taught the rest of SG-1. How easy it was to forget. How terrible, cruelly easy.


	19. Leaving

The worst thing about prison, Jack reflected, was the skull-crushing boredom.

Sometime around dawn, a couple of Enforcers had come in and given the prisoners breakfast. They'd each had a bowl of what looked like oatmeal but tasted like packing material, and that Percolate stuff. Since then, there had been nothing.

Nothing said between them, nothing changed outside. The storm seemed strong enough to overpower the sun, and there had been almost no sound from the other side of the jail room's door. Hours passed that way. Some of them paced, others dozed. Waiting. Jack hated waiting. He _hated_ it. But he knew it was the unknown he liked even less. The fact that they sat helpless, waiting for someone out there to decide their fate, that they would not know until someone told them if they were about to fight for their lives or if they were merely to be sent home minus one of their own.

In all their years fighting the Goa'uld, SG-1 had lost only one member of their team. Now they had lost two, and neither of them to the Goa'uld, neither of them to any real enemy of Earth. One was lost because of an accident, the other because of a civil war that had naught at all to do with Earth or the Goa'uld or anything. It was ridiculous that it should happen that way... and yet that was how it was playing out. Jack couldn't even find it in himself to make jokes, he was too angry; mostly with himself.

Just as he thought he was about to go crazy from waiting, the lock to the jail room clicked. Jack and the others stood hurriedly as the door slid open, admitting Aniyuv into the room.

The dark-eyed Kirian was grave-faced and moved silently to the cell which held Jack. Their eyes met, and Jack saw the raw pain Aniyuv was hiding behind his expression. Ayelas, Jack was reminded, had been Aniyuv's friend... and possibly more. The man was in the process of grieving, yet still he did his duty as he saw it. Jack had to admire that, even if it didn't bode well for him or his team.

For a lengthy number of seconds, Aniyuv stood without moving. Jack was almost ready to try a quip on him when Aniyuv finally sighed, moving to unlock the door of Jack's cell.

"You are to be escorted back to the Chappa'ai, whereupon your weapons and gear will be returned to you and you will be expected to go through to your home-world. You are not to return to Guf'yn. Enforcers will be present, guarding the Chappa'ai, to ensure that you do not."

"And Jonas?" Carter obviously couldn't help herself.

Aniyuv turned to her, but instead of answering, he merely crossed the room to open her cell. Jack glanced towards the exit, and saw other Enforcers standing rigid and silent while Aniyuv released them.

"What about Jonas?" Carter persisted.

"If we find him dead, he will be returned to you. If he is found alive, he will be tried for the murder of Ayelas of Kiri. There will no doubt be considerable debate, whether he is found innocent or guilty."

"Jonas didn't murder anyone," Carter snapped angrily.

Aniyuv met her eyes, equal anger in his own gaze.

"We tested all of your firearms. None of them match the bullet which was removed from Ayelas' body," his voice didn't even crack at saying her name, it was pure flat, cold anger, "That leaves one suspect."

"Oh use your head, Aniyuv," Jack scoffed, "I already told you, anyone could have Jonas' pistol."

"But not just anyone would have known where to wait for Ayelas, or that anyone was looking out for her, that they would have to flee the scene so quickly."

"And not just anyone would know your city well enough to do that effectively," Carter countered.

"I do not care," Aniyuv told her, and it was clear he didn't.

"Don't you want the murderer, the _real_ murderer, to pay for her death?" Jack asked.

"I know only that life was simpler without your kind here. I want all of you gone, and I do not care how that is accomplished," Aniyuv told him, but couldn't meet Jack's eyes, "Just so long as it is."

"Our removal will not resolve your difficulty, Aniyuv of Kiri," Teal'c said impassively, "Nor will it avenge the death of your loved one."

Aniyuv shrank only slightly from the tall Jaffa as Teal'c exited the cell to follow Jack and Carter to where the Enforcers waiting beyond the door.

"Just..." Aniyuv's voice finally cracked, and he struggled in silence for several seconds to regain his composure, "Just... get _out_ of my city."

* * *

The journey to the Stargate was made without anyone speaking. Rather than having to walk it, they rode in Enforcer vehicles, protected only a little from the lashing of the rain by virtue of a tarp thrown over the roll-bars and tied down. They were split into two groups. Despite the size of the Enforcer vehicles, not everyone could ride in a single vehicle. SG-1 and Kofield were in one vehicle, SG-9 were in another, and a third vehicle followed along behind. There were Enforcers in all three, but the third vehicle had the most. Aniyuv was clearly not about to allow for any trouble to start.

Jack sat sideways in the back of the second vehicle with Teal'c beside him, Carter and Kofield facing them on the other side. He stared out the back, gazing at the rain and passing scenery as the miles rolled by like the memories in his mind. He hated silence and doing nothing, not because of boredom, but because it gave him time to think, to reflect, to remember, to regret.

His mind was like a sieve, letting everything escape except for moments where life was at its most painful. The recent torture he'd experienced at the hands of Ba'al and the preceding deadly illness that had forced him to accept a Tok'Ra symbiote that then betrayed him and left him at the mercy of Ba'al didn't even come close on the pain scale.

Jack remembered the face and voice of every soldier he'd ever served with who hadn't made it home alive. He remembered the faces of families when Jack had told them they'd never see their child, sibling, spouse or parent again. And the sound of the M9 that had shattered Jack's entire world, killing his son and destroying his marriage. He'd remembered the desperate pain and loneliness he'd seen but ignored in Daniel's face on their first mission. He remembered the sound of that first staff blast Daniel had taken, taken for Jack, had known would kill him but chosen to do it anyway for Jack, a shell of a man who had nothing to go back home to. Daniel didn't want to die, but he'd done it anyway. A million more moments just like those flashed across the camera of his mind's eye, leading up to seeing his best friend dying in pain from radiation poisoning. Jack closed his eyes, but he couldn't silence his mind.

And then, unbidden, came the memories of Jonas. Every sight of the Kelownan's face been a painful reminder that Daniel was gone, the sound of Jonas' voice a confirmation that Jack would never get to argue with his best friend about anything again. But now it was different. Now all of those memories told him that he was leaving Jonas behind to die, that he'd never seen Jonas again if he left. It came as a surprise to him that it didn't make those memories any less painful.

Jack remembered that idiotically happy grin Jonas displayed whenever something happened to him for the first time. Jack remembered walking into Jonas' office, or into the commissary and seeing the young Kelownan delightedly eating all sorts of weird food, enjoying the hell out of anything and everything he was given to eat. Jack remembered Sam telling him that she was part of a circle of friends Jonas had made who brought him new foods in from the outside because he couldn't go exploring for himself.

Jonas had friends. He'd made actual friends at the SGC, even in spite of the fact that everyone (Jack included) had been prejudiced against him. He'd even won over Teal'c, who didn't normally take to much of anyone. Teal'c still smacked Jonas into the ground without mercy during combat training, but Jack had concluded that the harder Teal'c hit you, the more he liked you. Jonas was the only one on base who came close to getting punched as hard as Jack did.

Jack had heard base personnel describe Jonas as likable, eager and quick witted, funny even. Jack couldn't think when he'd heard Jonas try to be funny, and the eager beaver act got on his nerves. In fact, the one thing he'd liked about Jonas he'd only seen a handful of times.

He'd seen it when Jonas came through the Stargate from Kelowna, carrying naquadria he'd stolen for Earth, requesting asylum but obviously fully expecting to be sent back through to be executed. He'd seen it again when Jonas risked his life for SG-1 on the Goa'uld mothership. But most of all, he'd seen it when Jonas asked to become a part of SG-1.

" _I don't want you to exonerate me. I just want the opportunity to try and make a difference,"_ that had been what he'd said, and in his eyes -just for a moment- Jack had seen a ghost. Daniel.

 _God, I chose him just because I wanted Daniel back_ , Jack realized consciously for the first time, _I wanted Danny back so badly, I wouldn't accept anyone that wasn't him._

He'd asked Jonas to be someone he wasn't, and could not be. Jack's memory reminded him of how the young Kelownan had looked at him, not just then, but always. Desperation, loneliness, the longing for acceptance. It was the same look Jack had seen but denied during that first mission with Daniel. Jack had only seen what made Jonas different from Daniel, from the dark, almost indigo blue of his eyes to the way he constructed his sentences when he talked. He'd been so focused on who Jonas wasn't, that he hadn't taken the time to even scratch the surface about who he was.

* * *

It had been evening on Earth when Jack and the others were shipped through. A debriefing and standard medical exam meant it was long after midnight when Jack finally clocked out and made for home. Three o'clock rolled around, and Jack accepted sleep was not possible. It was too early for a beer, but not late enough for coffee. He needed something though.

Now Jack sat alone at the bar counter in his kitchen, gazing morosely at the beer he'd opened but not taken a drink from. Actually, he wasn't looking at it any more than he was drinking it. Instead, he was looking at the ring on the counter, the only tangible evidence that Jonas had ever even existed.

It was funny. Jack knew exactly how much alcohol would loosen Danny's tongue, how much would make him talk too much, how much would make it so he had no idea what he was doing, and how much would lead him to pass out. Jack knew the same thing about Carter. Hell, Jack knew the preferences and tolerances and drunken behaviors of over half the people he worked with, including Dr. Lee of all people. Normally it only took a couple of weeks before people loosened up enough to give at least a few tidbits about their drinking habits. It was such a part of social behavior that nobody thought about it. At least, nobody Jack knew. But Jonas was a complete and total mystery.

The man wore a ring, and liked to eat food. He had a fish tank in what had formerly been Daniel's office, but Jack didn't know if he'd asked for them himself or if someone had given them to him (If they'd been a gift, Jack didn't know if they'd been a well intentioned one, or a means of getting rid of fish the former owner didn't want). Carter told him that Jonas had a bizarre fascination with the weather. Teal'c had once remarked that Jonas had the heart of a warrior, but Jack hadn't been clear on whether or not Teal'c was trying out his sense of humor again.

Other than what anybody with clearance could get out of his file, these few facts were all Jack actually had on the man, other than that Jonas' had the most rage-inducing tendency to smile at every little thing. New things, old things, people making jokes at his expense, he was like a damned robot that was programmed to smile at every type of input in an attempt to seem friendly.

A ring. One piece of jewelry. That was it.

Where did Jonas get it? Did he bring it with him? It must have some significance to him, because he wore it all the time, but had otherwise erased all visible evidence of his Kelownan heritage, including the hairstyle (though that might have been a product of having to cut his own hair on-base). But had he acquired the ring somehow after he arrived? Had someone given it to him? Had he purchased it online, somehow managing to understand the internet better than most Earthlings? What did it mean to him? He wore it always, so it must mean something... or did it just mean he thought of it as being part of his uniform and put it on with his SGC-issue jacket every day? What did it matter now what the ring meant to Jonas? He probably wasn't getting it back.

Jack sighed, lifted the beer bottle, then put it back without taking so much as a sip from it.

" _You're wallowing."_

"What now?"

" _You tell me. I'm only a figment of your imagination, remember?"_

Jack wondered if he might not need something stronger than a beer.

" _You left Jonas alone back there."_

"I didn't have a choice. It was either that or get shot," Jack replied.

" _True. But what are you going to do now?"_

"If we try to get back through the 'Gate, Aniyuv's men will be waiting for us."

" _So you're just going to sit here and do nothing?"_

"Yes, Daniel. I am. You know why? Because it's the only thing I can do. Now go away and leave me alone with my beer. Unless you want to contribute something helpful. You're as bad now as that time I hallucinated you in Ba'al's prison cell."

" _That wasn't a hallucination and you know it."_

"Whatever," Jack sighed, "You weren't helpful then, and you're not helping now."

" _You remember the end of our first year as a team? You remember the ships that came to attack Earth? We sneaked on board, and I was shot. You remember that, don't you? And what happened next, Jack?"_

"Carter, Teal'c and I got off, and then the ship exploded," Jack said quietly.

" _And where was I?"_

"We left you there, on the ship. And I wish to God we hadn't."

" _That's neither here nor there. The point is... you weren't surprised."_

"What?"

" _I was alive, Jack. And you weren't surprised. Some part of you... always believed I was going to be alright. I was going to find my way home. I think it's time you believed in Jonas, don't you?"_

Jack sighed again, and took a swig of beer.

" _He's going to find his way, Jack. Believe it. And be ready, because he needs you. You're all he's got left, the only thing he can hold onto now. You and SG-1, you're his home now, his family, his world. When he comes back, know that he's coming back for you. Just like I did."_

"Yeah, until one day you didn't," Jack retorted.

" _I was there when you needed me,"_ Daniel reminded him, _"I always was. Whatever changes, whatever has already changed, that never will. You know that, just like you knew I'd come back that first time."_

Jack understood. Jonas was SG-1 now. If anyone could make it home under these circumstances, Jonas could. From now on though, he was on his own. And, Jack was reluctant to admit, that's how it had always been. If... _when_... Jonas made it back, that was going to change.


	20. End of the Line

**Part 3: Future**

" _L_ _ight carries on endlessly, even after death..."_

* * *

When the vehicle came to a stop and the trunk was opened, Jonas was almost blinded by the headache that struck him full force. A storm was raging outside, and cold wind and rain lashed across his face. He closed his eyes, seeking relief, and almost failed to resist when Kevs grabbed him by the left arm and hauled him out of the trunk, where he'd been lying on his side.

Jonas took a breath, opened his eyes, and acted. He was halfway out of the trunk, and had heretofore been unresistant, virtually limp. Now he gathered his legs under him and pushed off from the bottom of the trunk, throwing his weight high against Kevs, making the larger man step back or risk being knocked down. Jonas twisted his arm in Kevs' grip, then in one motion pulled his arm away while rotating his body towards Kevs' arm and heaving his weight into it. Kevs let go.

Jonas knew he'd merely taken Kevs' by surprise. Kevs and M'Fumo had seen only Jonas' fear. His only resistance had been hysterical and useless when M'Fumo had executed the Jinaz soldiers in front of him. Other than that, he'd shown them little in the way of spirit. But the ride in the trunk had cleared his thoughts, and given him time to focus. He was SG-1, and SG-1 didn't go without a fight.

His captors were so convinced of his helplessness that they hadn't bothered to bind him before putting him in the trunk, and there was only Kevs and M'Fumo, the latter of whom was now coming around to the back of the vehicle, having heard Kevs make a sound of surprise and protest.

Jonas knew he could not run now. He was physically injured and in a weakened state, even aside from not knowing where he was. His eyes were absorbing background information, but his brain could not process more than the fight at hand, and he ruthlessly shoved the visual input to the back of his mind, somewhere out of the way, where it could not distract him.

What he had to do was eliminate Kevs and M'Fumo's ability to chase him effectively.

Rather than flee as one would expect an escaping captive to, Jonas moved in. He acted on instinct rather than thought now, grabbing Kevs' nearest hand by the fingers, bending them and yanking downward as hard as he could. Kevs dropped to his knees in response to the pain, and Jonas attempted to go for his face, only dimly aware that he was attempting to do damage to Kevs' eyes.

He never managed it because M'Fumo, carrying the Riktari version of a rifle, turned the weapon and swung it. The back end of the weapon came down at an angle on the side of Jonas' knee with crushing force. With a cry of pain, Jonas felt his right leg fold under him in a way that wasn't natural.

He lost his grip on Kevs, and his limited control over the situation.

Jonas had read the files. He knew Dr. Jackson had gone the combat training equivalent of zero to sixty in two point five seconds. Dr. Jackson had been a wimpy archaeologist with debilitating allergies and big glasses, who had a tendency to trip and clumsily drop things he was carrying.

When he'd come to the SGC, Jonas had been virtually allergy free, with what Dr. Fraser remarked on as astonishingly good vision, and he was physically active for what the Colonel described as a geek. He knew he was a disappointment, because he had failed to pick up on the combat techniques as rapidly as Dr. Jackson had, and his body had failed to gain as much muscle mass as Dr. Jackson had acquired through intense physical training. Jonas was a quick study normally, and it frustrated him that his self defense abilities were less than adequate, now more than ever.

" _Whatever you do, don't stay still, especially when you've got more than one person after you and they're armed. Move and keep moving. Do not give them a solid target."_

The sound of the Colonel's voice in his head cut through the agony in his right knee, and Jonas rolled to the left. His shoulder cried out in protest as it briefly took his weight, but he bit his lip and ignored it, his breath coming too short, too shallow. He was panicking. Now was not the time to panic.

Rain water ran in rivulets down his skin, soaking through the fabric of his clothing and chilling him to the bone. It seemed to come off M'Fumo and Kevs in dangerous waterfalls. Jonas realized he'd rolled the wrong way. M'Fumo was carrying a rifle. Jonas shouldn't have put distance between himself and M'Fumo. That gave too much opportunity to get shot. Jonas turned enough to see Kevs getting to his feet, ignoring his painfully mangled fingers. He could also see M'Fumo beginning to raise the rifle. Jonas used his good leg to push off hard from the ground, flinging his weight against M'Fumo, pinning the rifle between them, aimed downward.

Their eyes locked, and Jonas was briefly paralyzed by the eerie similarity between the eyes of M'Fumo and the eyes of Colonel O'Neill. The facial similarities compounded the feeling of looking into the eyes of a man he knew, a man who intimidated him, a man he would never dare attack.

The moment was all Kevs needed to get behind Jonas and secure a choke hold across his throat. Jonas didn't even really feel himself choking as he was yanked away from M'Fumo. It seemed to Jonas that he barely had enough air for it to be worth cutting off, but he felt whatever strength he had leaving him almost immediately. Fighting required a lot more oxygen than talking, which was what Jonas was better at.

" _Move, Jonas. Keep moving."_

Jonas found his legs were still under him, or one of them was anyway. As Kevs maneuvered him away from M'Fumo, Jonas' arms were freed. Immediately, Jonas moved, striking Kevs in the chest with his elbow. He couldn't make the slightest attempt at kicking Kevs, not with only one leg holding him up. But he could hit Kevs below the ribcage with his elbow. He did so. Repeatedly. Kevs' grip loosened, and Jonas had the much needed air it took to slip free of Kevs' grasp once more.

It was as far as he got.

M'Fumo swung the rifle, and Jonas felt it connect with the back of his head. M'Fumo had measured the strength of his attack. Jonas hit the ground hard, his vision skewing and graying out, but his consciousness was still vaguely intact. He tried to move, but found to his frustration that the connection between his brain and his body had been scrambled, and all he could do was sort of flail uselessly.

M'Fumo shoved Kevs out of his way and stood in front of Jonas. He kicked the prone Quinn in the stomach, and Jonas flopped helplessly onto his back. M'Fumo kicked him again in the side. Jonas tried to remember what to do when you were down and being kicked, but he couldn't. It didn't matter, because his limbs would not obey him as M'Fumo continued to kick him several more times.

Jonas felt like his consciousness was desperately treading water in the middle of a roiling black sea, and he was getting too tired, he was beginning to sink. His thoughts scattered themselves, and he couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't even breathe. It wasn't just that M'Fumo had kicked the hell out of him. It was that his brain had decided that now was a good time to process what he'd seen on exiting the trunk. He knew where he was now.

He was just outside the central building in Kiri, the Last City. The City at the Edge.

Jonas was back where he'd started, what seemed a lifetime ago.

"Bitch," M'Fumo spat, then turned to Kevs and said, "Get him up."

* * *

Another day, another prison cell.

Had he not remembered what he'd seen outside, Jonas might have believed he was back in his original cell in Jinaz. But he remembered last night only too well. After making a serious of mistakes, Jonas was brutally kicked while he was down, then hauled into Kiri's central building by Kevs. He had then been dropped on the floor like a sack of bricks, and custody of him had been transferred from M'Fumo and Kevs to a couple of men Jonas recognized as Enforcers. He didn't have the strength to fight them directly, so he just made sure he was dead weight as they each took an arm and dragged him further into the building, first down a long hall, through a door, down another hall, and then down some stairs.

Jonas wished that had been the end of it. But it wasn't.

If he'd had any notion that the people who had him were merely disguised as Kirian Enforcers, that notion was utterly shattered by the arrival of Community Director Whilbarr. At the time, Jonas had been in too much pain to rise from the bench upon which he'd been dropped. He was trembling with anguish, and shivering with cold. He could barely see. But still he could recognize the black eyes and long face of Whilbarr. Moreover, he knew the man's voice, boring as it was to hear even now.

Whilbarr explained to Jonas that he was being blamed for the death of Ayelas. Jonas tried to say that he hadn't even been there, but he couldn't get enough air into his lungs, which felt like they'd been bruised by the beating he'd taken from M'Fumo, even in spite of the protection his ribs were supposed to offer. Every time he tried to take a deep enough breath to speak, he choked with pain. He realized that it Whilbarr probably didn't care either way, and he stopped trying.

Because Jonas was an alien and therefore potentially very dangerous and unpredictable, he was not going to be held in a Kirian prison. He could too easily have some alien powers he'd kept hidden, and might take out unsuspecting guards or even attack other prisoners. So he was to be kept here in the House of Belith, alone. It was obvious he was being offered no trial.

Jonas couldn't imagine why the Kirian Council would forego the opportunity to do paperwork and schedule some more meetings. He imagined that Kiri was rather fond of its legal proceedings. They probably broadcast them on television as entertainment for weeks. Not that Jonas would have expected a fair trial all things considered, but even a kangaroo court was better than this being smuggled in at night and tossed into a cell without windows in a jail with no other prisoners.

Something told him that the game of hot potato had just ended. This was his final destination. Jonas found himself reading the tag on the right side of Whilbarr's chest, the silvery metallic plate that had his name and office designation etched into its surface in Goa'uld.

By morning, the storm had either abated or else the thunder just wasn't loud enough to get through the thick walls anymore. There was no activity here, not as there'd been in the previous two locations. The silence hung heavy in the air, the sense that he'd been buried alive, forgotten and left to die was overwhelming. His grip on reality was increasingly tenuous, but every time he tried to just give up and let go, a part of him rebelled and clung on.

Hunger and thirst no longer manifested in the usual way, but instead made their presence felt by making Jonas' body felt heavy and cumbersome, cold and numb in places it shouldn't be. This came in addition to the various injuries he'd sustained since arriving on Guf'yn. Breathing hurt. Jonas felt the damage to his ribs with every beat of his heart. Moving was a torture he couldn't bear, so he just lay still, wishing for sleep or unconsciousness but knowing neither was forthcoming.

The anger that had fueled him earlier had cooled. With nothing to direct it at, it was difficult to maintain it. The only person he could aim it at was himself. It was the only way to keep the last of his crumbling resolve to not give up, to find a way out, to stop what was happening around him.

His body was betraying him, as it so often seemed to. He knew many people had endured worse, for longer, and somehow managed to survive with their will and mind intact. Colonel O'Neill was one of them But knowing that other people had survived Hell didn't make Jonas feel any better. Other people were stronger, braver, smarter, more deserving of having angels watch over them in the dark times. Other people did great things, amazing things. All Jonas did was screw up.

An amount of time passed that he was in no condition to judge. Normally he had an impeccable internal sense of time. That had been utterly destroyed by all that had happened, and by indeterminate periods where nothing happened. He could have been here hours, days, weeks, it was all the same now.

The lights snapped on, and he winced at the unexpected brightness. He squinted at the wall opposite him, blinking and trying to encourage his eyes to adjust. The sound of the door rolling aside would normally have gotten him up, but he couldn't face the pain that would cause just now.

"Time to get up," Jonas knew that voice.

He struggled to recall where he'd heard it before, but all he could remember was the sound of Whilbarr's voice as he explained that Jonas was to be locked away here for all time, convicted without trial of a crime he hadn't committed, wouldn't have even if he could. This wasn't Whilbarr. He reached deeper into his mind, but all he came up with was the sound of Dr. Jackson's voice.

Jonas was lying on his left side, as he'd been dropped. A hand he didn't recognize touched his right shoulder, shook him in what was probably a gentle manner but sent bolts of pain through his body. Jonas moaned in protest, but realized he was not going to be left alone and tried to get up.

"Easy there, you're a bit of a mess," the familiarity was really bugging him, but moving provoked such pain in his body that Jonas had to close his eyes just to get himself sitting upright.

The hand stayed on his shoulder, another helped guide him to a sitting position. By the time he succeeded, Jonas' breathing was short and labored. Once the world in his head stopped sloshing, he dared to open his eyes, and finally put face to the voice, and recognized Aniyuv.

Aniyuv was crouching in front of Jonas, bringing their faces almost level with each other. He had a very serious look on his face. More than that, there was a deep hurt in his dark gaze. He was grieving, Jonas could see it in his face.

"I need you to tell me something," Aniyuv said.

Jonas wasn't sure he had a voice left to speak with, but he nodded, wincing as the movement sent shadows and light skittering across his vision; star-bursts of pain exploded in his brain.

"Look at me, Quinn," Aniyuv commanded, and Jonas realized he'd closed his eyes again.

He opened them, and managed to get both eyes to follow instructions and look at Aniyuv.

"Your commander told me it was not possible. In the last moments before he was sent back through the Chappa'ai, he was very insistent," Jonas felt he ought to understand what Aniyuv was talking about.

Had Colonel O'Neill been here? He must've been. Did Jonas already know that? He couldn't remember O'Neill being on Guf'yn, but his brain seemed to be made of oatmeal... or cufnik.

"Did you kill Ayelas?" Aniyuv asked, his voice flat, eyes steel, gazing at Jonas steadily.

Jonas did not look away. He met Aniyuv's gaze forthrightly. Jonas knew how to lie without batting an eyelash, but he'd never liked it. Fortunately, under these circumstances, he didn't have to.

"No," he said, but his voice was almost inaudible, so he struggled to sit up straighter and cleared his throat (or tried to anyway) and repeated himself, "No. I didn't."

Aniyuv stared at him silently, a deceptively sharp mind calculating behind his eyes. Jonas did not look away, even though he sensed that if Aniyuv disbelieved him, everything he had endured up to now would be as nothing compared to what Aniyuv would do to him. He understood now. The fresh grief in Aniyuv's eyes was for Ayelas. Jonas didn't need to have ever seen them together to get it.

Aniyuv had loved her.

Finally, Aniyuv closed his eyes, and breathed out slowly. He'd come to a decision, though Jonas didn't know what it was. When he opened his eyes, his whole demeanor had changed. He had buried himself beneath a layer of professionalism. Aniyuv stood up, and offered Jonas a thermos with Percolate in it. Jonas loathed the stuff more than Hell, but he was desperately thirsty. The stomach cramps would be worth it. Once Jonas had consumed as much as he could tolerate, Aniyuv took the thermos back.

He said, "Come, God is waiting."


	21. He of Three Names

The throne room was several floors above the cell block. Traditionally, travel from one floor to another in a Goa'uld structure was effected by ring transport. But Jonas was directed to climb a steep flight of stairs. His injured knee protested, and his progress was necessarily slow. He was afraid that Aniyuv would grow impatient, but the man did nothing except watch dispassionately from a safe shooting distance. He seemed unwilling to get close enough to Jonas to prod him forward.

If he was afraid Jonas might have another fight in him, he needn't have worried. Weary and in pain, Jonas had thoughts only of avoiding making either condition worse. He knew that if he was Colonel O'Neill, he'd be coming up with sarcastic comments, and looking for an opportunity to overpower his captor. But he wasn't that brave and he didn't have the energy. Every movement was a new world of pain, and he was surprised to find he had the strength to get up, much less climb stairs.

Eventually, they arrived in front of a large golden door.

"Stand there," Aniyuv pointed at the floor.

Jonas moved to the spot and stood while the Enforcer stepped to the control panel at the side of the door and punched in a code to open it. The door slid aside heavily, and Jonas was distinctly aware of the sound of the mechanics. And then the door had opened, and Jonas saw the throne room.

The black marble (or marble-like) floor was bare except for support pillars arranged artfully around the room. Hidden light sources in the walls and pillars ensured that the eye was drawn immediately to the throne, also black marble and set on a dais with steps leading up. The dais was large enough to accommodate a second throne and a small crowd, but there was only one throne and no crowd at all.

The throne was elaborately carved, black with gold accents, and an ornate hanging behind it showed the symbol of its owner. Jonas didn't recognize the symbol, meaning it was not a Goa'uld with which the Tau'ri were familiar. He immediately committed it to memory without thinking about it.

At the same time as he was absorbing the details of the room, Jonas was also looking at the person sitting on the throne. He was wearing a black robe touched with gold threads. He was too short to be Guf'yn, with eyes of an ordinary human, and skin coloration to match. He had short black hair and angular features. His bearing was that of a Goa'uld, or someone masquerading as one. But what really captured Jonas' attention was the silver kara kesh the man was wearing on his left hand. If he was a human who had taken on the role of a Goa'uld, that object was only ornamental. If he was a Goa'uld, it was a weapon. Unlike a staff or zat, the power source for the kara kesh was the user themselves, the naquadah in their blood.

Wordlessly, Aniyuv shoved Jonas in the direction of the throne. Jonas tried not to focus too much on the kara kesh, but it was hard. He'd read enough reports concerning it to fear it at any distance.

When Jonas was a couple of feet from the dais, the Enforcer abruptly struck the back of his good knee with a boot. It was a far gentler impact than Jonas had expected, but it was enough to knock him down and send a fresh flare of pain through his left leg. He bit his lip and said nothing.

"Your kind are more persistent than expected," the voice was deceptively human, but Jonas knew that the distinct sound of the Goa'uld wasn't necessary, many Goa'uld could sound human if they wanted, "It was difficult to keep you moved away from where they sought to find you," he continued, "Valuable soldiers died. And to think, I would have had you killed, had I not learned of what you know."

Jonas felt his rage firing up as a wave of understanding hit him. Fury gave him strength, and stifled his fear. He set his jaw, and dared to look directly at the man on the throne.

"What a shame that would have been," Jonas remarked, "Because then I would never have figured out what all this is about...Belith, right? Or is it Berith? Beruth? Or do you prefer to be called Ba'al's whore?"

The dark eyes of the other seemed to drill straight through him. With a flick of his kara kesh adorned hand, he dismissed the Enforcer. Jonas suspected that he knew why. Jonas had challenged his godhood, and that had been a mistake under the circumstances. Only after the door slid closed did the man rise from the throne and move towards the steps. Jonas steeled himself, forcing himself to remain motionless. He knew full well that there was nowhere for him to run.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Jonas said, his voice level, "This world used to belong to you and Ba'al... until he abandoned you here, expecting the populace to destroy you."

"You know the truth of the System Lords."

"You're not going to deny it?" Jonas asked, somewhat surprised, "See, traditionally this is the part where you assert that you are a god and try to prove it using some parlor trick... or torture."

"Oh, torture is forthcoming... but not because of that."

"Oh?"

"I would not be much of a demon if I didn't torture my prisoners."

"You wouldn't use what little naquadah you've got left to power the hand device for no reason." A flinch. Just a slight one, but enough to confirm what Jonas had suspected.

"The hand device draws its power from you. It's only a little bit of a drain, but enough to be noticeable. You'd want to use a sarcophagus, but that's naquadah powered too... and you don't have much to spare. You've tried to visit worlds you knew the addresses to, but Ba'al had completely tapped them out and abandoned them, just like he abandoned you. You're trapped here," Jonas cocked his head to the side thoughtfully, "And you think I can tell you how to find more."

"I have learned of your SGC. You Earthlings visit many worlds. Some of them must have naquadah. And you... _you_ have the knowledge of how to get to those worlds."

The eyes flashed, and it was then that Jonas knew for certain that he was dealing with a Goa'uld. He should have been terrified. Anyone with any sense at all would be, even if they didn't show it. Maybe it was because he was tired. Maybe it was because he was angry. Maybe he just didn't give a damn anymore. Whatever it was, Jonas locked eyes with Belith, and was not afraid of him.

"I will not betray my friends," Jonas said calmly, "But feel free to try and make me."

"Oh, I will do more than try," the Goa'uld replied, lifting his kara kesh adorned hand a little higher and stepping closer to Jonas, his voice becoming soft and low, "I have felled empires, and brought kings to their knees. I will break you, human. And you will tell me anything and everything I want to know."

* * *

Aniyuv's whole world had been wrapped around a center of light that emanated from Ayelas. He knew she'd had some idea of how he'd felt about her, but she'd been too coy to admit it. So she would smile for him, laugh at his jokes, and accept his awkward attempts at friendliness. The fact that he adored her had led him to bend the rules so she could do things quickly that would otherwise take hours of paperwork, or months of Discussion. Harmless things, just to further her studies of Guf'yn's history. She had convinced him that there was something wrong with how the Kirian did things, that all the paperwork and the politics and the legislation for this, that and the other really only made life more difficult and didn't actually solve anyone's problems.

On some level he'd known it, but Ayelas had known how to say it out loud without sounding like a budding Jinaz or Riktari radical. She'd known how to say something was wrong without embracing its polar opposite. Most people couldn't do that. Most people talked as if there could only be two ways of doing any given thing. At best, you could pick something between two extremes. But Ayelas... she had forged her own path through the wilderness of life. She had declared that there were things people hadn't thought of. There were other ways to live besides the Kirian, and that looked nothing at all like what the Jinaz and Riktari proposed. There was another way to be.

More than anything, she had despised the House of Belith, because to her it represented oppression, and deceit. She had not known that Belith was a living, breathing entity within the House's walls. Not many people did. Only those in power, and the people they trusted. Aniyuv, as a veteran Enforcer trusted with the greatest secrets his government held, was one such trustee.

Belith was the lord and master of Kiri, and almost nobody knew it, because he had instructed the Community Council to deny his very existence. When Aniyuv had asked Community Director Whilbarr why they were asked to deny the existence of their god, he was told not to question Belith. Worshipers were beneath their god, and could not hope to understand his purposes and intent.

Aniyuv had forced himself to be satisfied with that answer. He'd never been as religious as many, and so it was easier for him to just not even think about it, to put all the questions aside.

But he had known the moment he saw the Earthlings that everything was about to change. It hadn't been the Jinaz that set the explosives. It hadn't been the Riktari. It had been the Kiri themselves. The two Earthlings were supposed to be killed. The people of Earth were supposed to become angry or afraid and leave. But J'Mil of the Jinaz had interfered.

And now Aniyuv's god had changed his mind. Suddenly, he didn't want Jonas Quinn dead after all. Suddenly he was willing to kill the Earthlings just to be rid of them. Suddenly Quinn was taken from the Jinaz by the Riktari, taken from their most secure location with only a few Jinaz executed. Suddenly that snake M'Fumo was delivering Quinn here in the middle of the night. Suddenly Ayelas... beautiful, sweet, kind, funny, brilliant Ayelas was dead. And suddenly the man they all knew had been held prisoner all this time was accused of murdering her. And Aniyuv didn't know why.

But he'd seen the light shine from Quinn's eyes when he finally met Belith face to face. Aniyuv had heard the man speak enough to know how smart he was. And Quinn knew something. Aniyuv believed Quinn when the man said he hadn't killed Ayelas. But it wasn't enough. Aniyuv needed to know more, to understand just what it was that Ayelas had died for.

Aniyuv needed to know the truth of his god.

When he was called back into the throne room to retrieve Quinn after Belith was finished, Aniyuv's heart seemed to stop for a beat. The younger man had collapsed on the floor and lay without moving. He'd gone deathly pale, and for a moment Aniyuv feared Quinn wasn't even breathing.

"Return him to his cell," Belith commanded from his seat on the throne.

"Yes, my lord," Aniyuv said automatically.

He knelt down to lift Quinn, and was relieved to feel the heat of the human's breath against the back of his hand as he rolled Quinn over and repositioned him to make it easier to pick him up. The man was alive, if only barely. But he wouldn't be for much longer if he continued to defy Belith as he had earlier.

The human was surprisingly light. Aniyuv had noticed how small humans were, but it hadn't fully dawned on him until he picked Quinn up. The younger man felt alarmingly fragile to him, like one of those artifacts Ayelas always warned him not to touch because the slightest pressure in the wrong place could shatter them. He wondered if the Earthling could even survive another day.

After making his way down the stairs to the cell where Quinn was kept, Aniyuv carefully laid the unconscious man down on the bench at one side of the room. He knew that Quinn needed to rest, that after a session with Belith it would be hours before he was fully coherent, even if he was awakened. But Quinn knew things, and Aniyuv needed to understand. It was vital that he learn what Quinn knew. Both of their lives depended on the answers Quinn could offer, Aniyuv knew it.

Aniyuv didn't care for cruelty. When he had to get information out of a prisoner, he preferred to offer them something they wanted in exchange for what he needed. But he was an Enforcer, and sometimes vinegar was required when honey wouldn't do the trick. Looking over the unconscious Quinn, listening to the slight wheeze in the shallow, uneven breathing, Aniyuv guessed that a lot of vinegar had been used, and very little honey. He didn't particularly enjoy that he was about to add to that, but he had to know, and he doubted Quinn would say anything without some prodding.

"Quinn," Aniyuv laid a hand on Quinn's shoulder and shook him slightly, speaking in a quiet but urgent tone, "Quinn, I need you to wake up now. Wake up."

Heat radiated from the Earthling's skin, but it was clear he was dehydrated, for no sweat accompanied the heat. Quinn didn't react at all to Aniyuv's prodding. Aniyuv knew he was supposed to leave Quinn alone now, and only give him something to drink next time Belith called for him, so he'd be more alert during questioning. But he wasn't going to get Quinn's attention any other way.

Aniyuv slid a hand under Quinn's head to tilt it upward. With his other hand, he took out the Percolate and unscrewed the lid with forefinger and thumb. He worked the edge of the thermos between Quinn's lips and poured, slowly. The moisture snapped the young man into action. He flinched and jerked from Aniyuv's supporting hand, then choked and spat. His eyes flashed open.

He had that slightly brain addled look that people got after being subject to the hand device, but Aniyuv knew it was temporary. Quinn made it to a sitting position, pressing his back against the wall of his cell and eying Aniyuv and the thermos warily out of undoubtedly blurry vision. His body was wracked with violent shuddering, and he braced his palms against the bench to try and quell it.

"Don't you think I've been tortured enough?" his voice was so raspy and quiet Aniyuv almost couldn't understand him.

Aniyuv decided to skip the small talk, "What did you mean when you called Belith... Ba'al's whore?"

Quinn closed his eyes, tucking his left arm to his chest and pulling his knees up protectively. He was still shivering, his skin pale, eyes feverish and unfocused, breath coming in shallow gasps.

Aniyuv tried again, "Who is Ba'al?"

"He's a Goa'uld," Quinn coughed, bit his lip and lightly banged the back of his head against the wall, as if trying to distract himself from the excruciating pain he was in by introducing a new one.

"What is a Goa'uld?" Aniyuv asked.

Quinn had closed his eyes tightly when he leaned his head back, but now he opened them. He gazed hazily at Aniyuv, like he didn't fully understand the question. Then he answered.

"Belith. Belith is a Goa'uld."

As if that explained everything, he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes again.

"You've got to give me more than that," Aniyuv insisted, shaking Quinn by the shoulder, "I need you to tell me exactly what that means. I need to know, do you understand?"

Quinn opened his eyes, but it took him a long time to focus them and look at Aniyuv. Even once he did, he stared silently at the Enforcer for a long moment, like he wasn't sure what he was being asked. But then, finally, he took a shaky breath, and began to speak.

* * *

Jonas was only dimly aware that he was talking. At first, he wasn't even sure who he was talking to. When Aniyuv first wakened him, Jonas' mind had told him he was still in the throne room with Belith. But his fragmented consciousness couldn't make head or tails of why a Goa'uld would need him to tell them about the Goa'uld. It would be a bit like if Teal'c asked him about Chulak.

He realized now that the anger and following sarcasm had been last ditch attempts to hang on. Neither were in his nature, they'd been drawn out as a desperate bid for survival. Having failed, Jonas knew he'd been beaten. Had Belith asked him in that instant what the address for his home planet was, Jonas wasn't sure he could've held out. But fortunately, Jonas was one inch tougher than Belith, and he'd gotten out of the throne room without having told the Goa'uld anything.

At first he could barely speak. His voice was very quiet, and he had to stop frequently even in mid-sentence to catch his breath. But as he talked, his brain began to clear somewhat. By the time he'd moved on from Goa'uld generally to Belith specifically, Jonas realized where he was, and who he was talking to. It didn't stop him, nor even slow him down.

Dr. Jackson had made some notes about Ba'al before his death, and Jonas had reviewed them when Colonel O'Neill was taken prisoner by the Goa'uld. Most of those notes were necessarily somewhat vague, as SG-1 had not come into direct conflict with Ba'al prior to Dr. Jackson's death. But somehow the man had found the time to write about a Goa'uld that had up to then been only of distant concern. Dr. Jackson had met Ba'al just once, while undercover as a Goa'uld slave. Ba'al had done nothing to him, but Dr. Jackson had suggested that keeping a wary eye on Ba'al was warranted, because he was smarter than he looked and more devious than he sounded.

Ba'al had once been in the service of Ra, but even then it was likely he had been plotting to steal a greater role for himself. In many old texts Dr. Jackson (and subsequently Jonas) had read, Ba'al's name was mentioned alongside another name. Belith. Some scholars seemed to think of the two as a single entity, but Dr. Jackson theorized that Belith was actually a partner or underling of Ba'al.

Belith and Ba'al had a falling out sometime while the latter was still in the service of Ra. In certain writings, Belith was mentioned separately from Ba'al, and then eventually disappeared entirely. It had been Dr. Jackson's belief that Belith had probably been killed. Jonas knew he should have picked up on it sooner, but Beruth didn't ring a bell with him, and by the time he heard the name Berith, he probably couldn't have found the connection between two ends of a piece of string, much less recognize the similarity between Berith and Belith.

This had been a planet belonging to Ra, or possibly a side planet of Ba'al's. Either way, when the naquadah went, Ba'al must have somehow stranded Belith here. At first, Belith would have attempted to maintain control in the same manner as Goa'uld had for thousands of years. But without naquadah, there were many things which Belith could not do or could only do sparingly until the last of whatever he had ran out. If Belith had been left with any Jaffa, they would of course have eventually died.

"If he is not a god, how could he continue to control our population without an army?" Aniyuv asked, "Especially as the official policy of Kiri is that we no longer believe in any god."

"Easily," Jonas replied, "Most Goa'uld lose power by demanding more than their people can give, and also becoming lax in their security. Without the resources of most Goa'uld, Belith had to resort to secrecy. He can use the technology and knowledge at his disposal to place the people in power he wants, and then blackmail them into obedience. He's created a world that cannot function on its own for all the bureaucracy, which can control people just as much as a gun pointed at their heads. They're afraid to do anything, because they'll get buried in paperwork. And they don't have the time to organize a rebellion because they're too busy filling out forms. Chances are, most of the population has no idea what's happening, and they just follow their instructions because it's easier than asking questions. He's had a thousand years or more to build this up. He probably started off small, gradually putting more restrictions and regulations in place as he faded from public memory."

"And the Jinaz and Riktari?"

"Pawns," Jonas said, "Just like the Kirian. Doubtless Belith has his hooks in them as well. He controls all three major cities from the shadows, and makes sure they spend more time fighting with one another than him. Everyone I've talked to has very strong opinions about their city, and their sister cities, but none of them seem to be aware of the truth. Aniyuv, your entire society is based on a lie."

"That still doesn't explain the term you used to describe Belith."

"Oh, that," Jonas smiled ruefully, "Well, I just got to thinking... what use would Ba'al have for a partner? He wanted to take power from Ra, to become a System Lord. Who would he want to help him with that but a Goa'uld queen? Goa'uld don't have male and female, not like humans do. But there are Goa'uld who can produce larva. We refer to them as queens. Very often, they are the partner or consort of powerful System Lords. Usually they prefer female hosts, but maybe one wasn't available for Belith last time he changed hosts."

"I do not understand."

"You remember the Jaffa I mentioned? Well, they rely on larval Goa'uld to survive. That is part of the power the Goa'uld have over them. A queen can pass on all or only some of her genetic memory. Or none, making her offspring mindless and easily controlled. If you have a queen at your side, you can build an army from scratch, instead of having to overthrow a System Lord and take his Jaffa."

"Why would Ba'al give up such an advantage?"

"From what I've read, Goa'uld queens are not easy to control. Some of them are quite devoted to their lords, but others have plans of their own. And the last thing you want is to be at war with someone capable of generating their own army from almost nothing. Belith probably revealed that he was not content to let Ba'al run things. Goa'uld are arrogant, and they do not share power easily. The only reason there are System Lords is that one Goa'uld hasn't managed yet to take all of the others out and control everything for himself. Ra is the only one that even came close."

"If Belith is everything you say, could he not have raised an army of his own here?"

"Without the right pieces of technology or access to a supply of naquadah?" Jonas shook his head, "No. He could not have made any new Jaffa, or kept any larval Goa'uld alive long enough to reach adulthood. He would save what little he had for his sarcophagus."

"The machine that offers eternal life?" Aniyuv queried.

Jonas shook his head, "Even the sarcophagus isn't that powerful. Despite all they can do to prevent it, Goa'uld are mortal. Sooner or later, even the sarcophagus isn't enough to save them. But something tells me Belith isn't anywhere near that old yet."

"But what if Belith was left with a few Jaffa? They would carry larva to adulthood, wouldn't they?"

"Well yes, but they wouldn't live very long without access to the sarcophagus, and Belith wouldn't risk shortening his lifespan in exchange for an army that he couldn't get off the planet. He wants to know of a planet with naquadah. That's what he wants from me. His plan was probably to advance your people's technology, and make it dependent on naquadah so you'd go looking yourself in ships or through the Stargate. Even then, it was a long shot. Getting information out of me is a lot easier, and quicker."

"So why did he want you dead?"

"He's not a god, he doesn't know everything. At first, all he saw was that we had the potential to upset the balance of power, possibly take it from him entirely. He wanted Earth and Guf'yn to cut all ties. But then he gradually realized that we knew so much more than just how to read Goa'uld."

"And do you have these... addresses you mentioned that he wants?"

"Yes," Jonas said, "But I'm not giving them to him."

"Why not? He'll kill you anyway, but this way it'll take much longer and be far more painful."

"I will not give the Goa'uld any advantage. If Belith gets loose from this planet, many worlds will suffer. I'm hoping he doesn't realize what he can do about it."

"What's that?"

"When a Goa'uld burrows in, it not only takes control of the host's body, but gains the host's memories as well. Belith's current host would die if he left... but I doubt he cares much about that."

"You're saying he could take you as his host..."

"And take every bit of information I've got for himself," Jonas sighed, deflating as the reality finally hit home, "He's smart enough to figure it out, and there's nothing I can do to prevent it. Sooner or later, Belith is going to take all that I know by force. Even so... if he wants what I know, he's going to have to come and take it, because I'm sure as hell not going to just give it to him."


	22. Go With It

Aniyuv didn't want to believe what Quinn had to say. The problem was that, the more questions he asked and the more Quinn answered, the less he was able to deny it. It all made too much sense. He didn't even have to ask why Ayelas had been murdered. Her association with the Earthlings gave the perfect excuse for killing her and then blaming them for her death. It got rid of the Earthlings, and -if anyone happened to care enough to ask about Quinn- it gave the perfect excuse to keep him locked up.

Ayelas was just an expendable pawn in a larger game than the one she and Aniyuv had thought they were playing. This was no longer just about his city's government, or even his planet. This was about the universe as a whole. It was a lot to take in, and he didn't want to believe it.

But the next time Belith called for Quinn, Aniyuv was not sent from the room. He stood by and watched as Belith employed the hand device to try and pry information out of his captive. But the only thing he managed to wring out of Quinn was screams. Aniyuv watched, and found that he was flinching. What god would do such things?

When he was finally allowed to drag Quinn back to his cell, the small human was barely alive. Aniyuv left him alone. Tonight, Aniyuv had work to do. Quinn had given him all the answers he needed. If he chose to believe the man from Earth, then he was obligated to act. He had become an Enforcer to protect people, to uphold the laws and maintain public order, not to watch as defenseless people were tortured and killed in front of him. He also understood the horror that Quinn had not put into words.

What happened to a host when a Goa'uld took them by force was worse than mental rape. It was the beginning of a life of anguish and torment, able to see and hear everything, but not able to do anything as the demon inside ripped people apart, tortured and put millions to their deaths with the flick of a hand. To know every dark thought, ever demonic impulse... and be able to do nothing but watch. And then multiply that by thousands of years. A fate worse than death.

Quinn knew that was what awaited him, and that all the resistance in the world would not be enough to save him from that fate, yet resist he did. With whatever was left of his spirit, he fought back in the only way he could. Aniyuv could think of nothing nobler than that. For that reason, if for no other, he knew he had to put a stop to this somehow. Unlike Quinn, Aniyuv had the power to do something.

* * *

Jack knew he was dreaming again. The setup was the same as the last time. In the months since Daniel's ascension, he'd spent a lot of his dreams remembering Daniel. It was like his subconscious just couldn't let go, refused to believe Danny was really gone forever. But a greater part of him was accustomed to loss, and was equally vehement in its refusal to let him believe Daniel was still around.

"You got another cryptic message on that bottle?" Jack inquired.

Daniel looked at the bottle. He rotated it slowly, examining it. Then he shrugged.

"No, just a beer. Want one?"

"Good," Jack said, accepting the offered beer and, in the manner of dreams, did not question where it had suddenly appeared from, "'cause I hate it when you come here and tell me cryptic stuff. I don't know why you can't just be like you were before."

"Because I'm not like I was before," Daniel replied evenly.

"Yeah, don't I know it," Jack sighed, and consented to sit in one of the living room chairs.

"You need to go back," Daniel said, setting his beer on the coffee table.

"Come again?" Jack asked.

"You heard me."

"Yeah, I heard you, but you know as well as I do we can't pull that off. Aniyuv's itty bitty enforcement committee is all over that Stargate. We couldn't get through even if we knew where to go."

"That won't be a problem much longer," Daniel said levelly, "When the time comes, just go with it."

"Go with what?" Jack asked.

"You'll know it when you hear it," Daniel replied.

"I don't usually take advice from dreams, Danny Boy," Jack told him.

"Just..." suddenly Daniel tensed, the relaxed aspect all but gone as he looked around warily, "Just... you want Jonas back alive... you've got to trust me. Look, I have to go now."

"You haven't even finished your beer," Jack pointed out.

"Yeah... another time," Daniel was distracted now, and uneasy.

"Daniel?"

"Trust me, Jack."

And then, in the manner of dreams, Daniel was gone, and Jack was sitting alone with a beer in hand. He looked around cautiously, suspicious that Daniel might still be around somewhere.

"For the record," he told the empty room, "I hate it when you say things like that."

No sooner had he said this than Jack woke up and found himself lying in bed. Checking the clock on his nightstand, he saw it was three in the morning, the same time it had been last time Daniel visited. Only last time Jack had been awake. It didn't matter. Either way it was just wishful thinking.

He didn't get why, but Jack had the sudden urge to get up and go to work. That hardly ever happened at three in the morning on a weekend, especially when SG-1 was currently on stand down. Even had they not been, they wouldn't be up in mission rotation for awhile.

Jack sat up in bed, turning and hanging his legs over the edge. He rubbed his face wearily, and acknowledged that he needed to shave. Even in spite of himself, Jack found himself wondering if he had time to shave before he went in to the SGC. He had no good reason to go there, and normally wouldn't set foot in the place when he didn't need to, but something was urging him to go in today. He refused to believe it was a consequence of the dream he'd just had. Probably it was just a gut feeling.

Long ago, Jack had accepted that sometimes instincts were more important than intelligence. In an absence of information and without logical explanation, Jack had more than once been prompted to act in a certain way. He wasn't the only one. Despite his intellect and vast amounts of knowledge, Daniel had always been open to acting on impulse. Jack had seen it as reckless at first, but the thing was... Daniel was usually right in the end. He'd taken a misstep now and then, but overall he'd been right more often than he was wrong. Leaps of faith were Daniel's specialty. In fact, if Jack wasn't mistaken, Daniel's ascension had been yet another such leap, a blind placing of trust in something unseen.

Jack didn't like it, but over the years he'd learned that his liking it didn't really matter.

He got up and went to shave, keeping an ear open just in case his phone rang. His phone had no business ringing at three in the morning on a weekend. He had no reason to think for even a second that it might ring. If asked, he'd say he didn't normally expect it to ring when it shouldn't. Though he was prepared to face an unexpected crisis at any time on any day of the week, and was ready to go into battle every second, Jack didn't listen tensely just in case the phone happened to ring. He'd have driven himself crazy long ago if he did. Nonetheless, he listened extra close now, just in case the phone rang.

Jack went into the bathroom, flipped on the light and flinched as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. He fumbled for his razor, remnants of sleep and the overhead light rendering him virtually blind for the moment. He found the razor from memory, it was where he always left it. On the outside, Jack liked to look a bit scruffy and messy, but anyone who'd seen his kitchen or bathroom knew he was almost obsessively precise about where he put everything in his house.

Just as he picked up his razor, Jack heard sound of his phone ringing.

* * *

Jonas knew he'd had an impact on Aniyuv. He hadn't needed to lie, bend the truth, leave anything out or embellish in any way, shape or form. But he had chosen his words and inflection carefully, once he finally found enough reality to understand what he was doing. It was just instinct.

The weird part was that he felt dirty, as if he'd done something inexcusably wrong, even though the only thing he'd done was tell Aniyuv the truth.

 _No, that's not all you did,_ he thought, _You included theories, fears that may not even be grounded in reality. You told him what you were afraid of, not just what he wanted to know._

Jonas had manipulated Aniyuv, just as surely as if he'd lied. He'd said exactly what Aniyuv needed to hear, the way he needed to hear it to make him act. Only now that he had time to think about it did Jonas realize that it was also probably just enough to get the man killed.

As always, his first instinct had been self preservation, consequences be damned. He was tired of being that selfish, worthless person. But it seemed like that was all he would ever be. It was his nature.

"Dammit, Jonas! Find a way to stop Belith, to save these people. You're smart, so think of a way!"

The fact that the voice wasn't in his head startled Jonas. But the fact that it was not the voice of Colonel O'Neill, which he'd been hearing in his head off and on since before his capture terrified him. He recognized the voice instantly, of course. It was Dr. Jackson's voice, and it didn't feel like it was in his head. It felt real, and that scared him because it meant his grip on reality was further gone than he'd thought. And that meant he could no longer trust himself to stay silent in the face of Belith's questioning, or to tell Aniyuv what he needed to hear if he came back.

"There's a way this all works out, Jonas," Dr. Jackson's voice insisted, "I need you to find it."

" _You_ find it," Jonas muttered, his voice so weak it wasn't even a whisper, "You're the brilliant one, the one who has all the answers. I wasn't made for this, and I have no idea what I'm doing. The only thing I can do is keep screwing up. So you figure it out."

"I can't. And I can't tell you why... shape you're in, you wouldn't be able to understand it now anyway."

Jonas stared at the wall across the room from him. He couldn't believe that he'd sunk this low. Bringing the memory of Dr. Jackson into this mess. That had to be a mistake. His hundredth, perhaps?

"Look, Jonas, I know you're exhausted, but you've got to figure this out. I can't tell you what would happen if Belith got loose from this world... but you've got to make sure that doesn't happen. You have to make sure that he does not get off this planet alive. Do you understand?"

"No," Jonas sighed, still gazing at the wall, "But I'll try."

Dr. Jackson didn't say anything else, but Jonas felt that he was alone. He closed his eyes, and submitted to unconsciousness. When he awakened later, he could not be sure that he hadn't dreamed everything. He was sure that the sound of Dr. Jackson's voice had been a hallucination.

* * *

The phone call had been from an airman dispatched by General Hammond to call in SG-1. The reason for the call was simple. In the middle of the night, there had been an unauthorized off-world activation. Sgt. Walter Harriman had picked up a radio signal from the other side. It came from Guf'yn. Specifically, it came from Aniyuv.

The Kiri Enforcer claimed that he knew where Jonas Quinn was, and intended to help get the Kelownan back to Earth. He claimed to have a plan, but he needed help from the SGC. For reasons he claimed not to have time to get into, he said he didn't have the personnel to do it.

"It could be a trap," Carter remarked once they were assembled in the briefing room, "Maybe the Kirian got through deliberating and decided they wanted to make an example of us."

"Such an action would be consistent with the behavior they have displayed thus far," Teal'c remarked.

"Based off of the emotional state Aniyuv was in when we left, I wouldn't advise trusting him," Carter continued, "He wasn't exactly in the most stable frame of mind."

There was a beat of silence, during which Jack would normally have put in his two cents. All eyes at the table turned to look at him. Jack sat stiffly, trying to reconcile his instincts with what he knew. Everything in him screamed not to trust Aniyuv, to stay as far away from Guf'yn as possible. Nothing but disaster came from that damned planet with its insane people. But in his head rang the memory of Daniel's voice from the dream, soft yet urgent, gently pleading with him because Daniel had learned over time that Jack hated being told what to do and it was always better to ask him instead of tell him, even when Daniel knew exactly what needed to be done and there was no other choice.

" _Trust me, Jack."_

Jack's natural skepticism told him it was just a dream. But his gut was telling him that it didn't matter. Whether it was a dream or hallucination or something more profound, it was still the right call to make.

"I say we should just go with it," Jack said, then realized he'd just addressed the wall on the other side of the room in a somewhat dull voice, so he turned his head and focused on General Hammond and speaking in a more convincing tone, "General, I think we should go."

"Colonel, are you sure?" Hammond inquired, his brow furrowing, "From everything I've heard so far, the Guf'yn, in particular the Kiri, are highly dangerous and unpredictable."

"Maybe so," Jack admitted, "But this is our last chance to get Jonas back."

Perhaps it was because he was so often tangled up in politics while trying to run the SGC, but General Hammond had always had a soft spot for Jonas, from the moment the young Kelownan defected to Earth. Because of his station and understanding of politics, Hammond knew better than any of them exactly what Jonas had done, and what he had risked. It hadn't sunk in for Jack just what exactly Jonas had done until Kelowna attempted to reestablish trade negotiations with Earth.

It was less what was said than what wasn't said. Most of all, Jack was aware of the fear in Jonas' eyes. He didn't think the man had taken his eyes off the Kelownans for so much as a second the entire time. His love for his people led him to carry only a non-lethal weapon, even though Carter had encouraged him to carry something more powerful just in case, but that love did nothing to conceal the fear. Jonas had known from the start that the Kelownans would not have him back as anything but a prisoner arrested for treason, to await trail and probable execution to follow.

Jonas hadn't just offered them all the naquadria he could get his hands on, or even merely a public insistence that Dr. Jackson was innocent and the naquadria bomb project was wrong. He had come to the SGC and offered them his life. Jonas had embarrassed his government, challenged their leadership and stolen valuable weapon materials that he then handed off to people of another world. He could have committed no greater crime unless he'd murdered the First Minister in cold blood. General Hammond had understood that immediately.

But whether it was a soft spot for Jonas, faith in Jack's instincts or some other reasoning Jack couldn't even begin to guess at, the General let out a sigh and nodded slowly.

"Alright, SG-1. You have a go. Take SG-15 with you."

"General... I'd like to take SG-7 with me as well," Jack said.

"Lt. Marshal is still in the infirmary," Hammond said.

"The rest of them, then, sir," Jack insisted.

Hammond looked Jack dead in the eye. The General understood.

"Very well. Colonel, gather your teams and head to the 'Gate room. You leave in thirty."

"Sir."


	23. Challenge

The area around the Stargate was deserted, except for a single Enforcer vehicle. Aniyuv had parked it sideways and removed the tarpaulin cover off the back, exposing the interior, showing he was alone. The area near the Stargate, cleared as it was, offered no cover. It was the perfect setup for Goa'uld Death Gliders to sweep in and wipe out any invading forces.

During his second conversation with the SGC, before the teams were deployed, Aniyuv had revealed the presence of Belith, and in brief explained what Jonas had told him. Belith's Death Gliders were long gone, but the symbol of control that the cleared 'Gate area and rigidly planted, obsessively maintained trees represented still stood. Sometimes the illusion of power was enough.

Aniyuv stood before his vehicle, both hands in sight and away from the weapon he carried.

"I thought there were supposed to be Enforcers watching the Stargate," Jack remarked to Aniyuv after the teams had finished deploying and assuming defensive positions around the 'Gate.

"I'm in charge of the scheduling. Nobody looks at any assignment but his own, except for the person designing the schedule. Too much trouble. Some of my men could be swayed from their service to Belith, but not soon enough for your friend, I'm afraid. There was also the chance that they would report my intentions to Community Director Whilbarr, and I would be stopped."

"So you just went around them," Carter said.

"I scheduled the rotations, so that there are gaps between the shifts. We need to be away from here in the next ten minutes. There is a lesser used road around the trees on that side," he gestured, "We will take that and the incoming Enforcers will never see us. Then we drive around Kiri to the side that the Jinaz bombed last year, taking out one of the four defensive walls. There are soldiers there, but I am often sent outside the city to meet with operatives undercover in Jinaz. The soldiers are supposed to check vehicles both coming in and going out, but they know me, and they do not enjoy paperwork."

"Paperwork?" Jack inquired.

"If they check the vehicle, they are obligated to write a report on everything they find inside. I am obligated to submit a report saying that they searched my vehicle, and what was inside of it. Another Enforcer is obligated to check my vehicle after I leave it, and to write what he finds. We long ago discovered that the only report the Council is interested in is the final one. Security-wise, it makes no sense, but we take advantage of it. I submit my reports, the soldiers submit theirs, but they are copies of each other, so we don't have to write them out."

"Ah," Jack shook his head, "Well I think we can scratch Kiri off my list of places to retire."

"Come, we must hurry," Aniyuv insisted.

The others hesitated, but Jack merely shrugged and waved Aniyuv towards the driver's seat. Aniyuv climbed in, and Jack took the shotgun position while the rest of the teams piled into the back.

"This will not be pleasant," Aniyuv warned them as the vehicle's engine roared to life, "This road is in much need of repair, and is seldom used. Brace yourselves."

* * *

Aniyuv had said the road was in need of repair. After having been bounced around until he felt his tailbone slowly inching its way up to introduce itself to his brain, Jack's response was 'what road?'

The noise made it impossible to talk to Aniyuv, and it was clear they were on some kind of tight schedule. It bothered Jack that he didn't know exactly where they were going, or what they were meant to do when they got there. He knew that he would normally have refused to even begin to agree to going along with a practical stranger like Aniyuv without at least hearing the plan. But when he'd made the choice to 'just go with it', he'd gone all in. They were going with it -whatever _it_ was- to the end.

After an eternity of being used as a maraca by the unforgiving road, Jack was relieved when Aniyuv stopped the vehicle. Jack looked around and saw that they were still beyond sight of the city. Behind them lay the carefully arranged trees. Up ahead was the more natural forest outside of Kiri.

"Time to put the cover on and get in the back," Aniyuv told Jack.

Aniyuv got out of the vehicle, then stood on its running board to reach a closed trunk at the front of the rear compartment. Unlatching it, Aniyuv revealed a neatly folded tarp. Jack and the others moved to help Aniyuv unfold it, spread it over the roll bars of the vehicle and tie it in place to conceal what was in the back from prying eyes.

"This is going work, isn't it?" Carter asked quietly.

"Of course," Jack replied, "Aniyuv knows what he's doing."

"I'm sure," Carter replied, sounding uneasy, "But do we?"

Jack hesitated, then he shrugged, "Probably not, but when have we ever?"

"That's not very comforting, sir," Carter told him.

But Jack knew that she and Teal'c both hated false assurances. They wanted the truth every time, without a grain of sugar coating it. Daniel had always been straight with everyone he talked to, even if they didn't want to hear it. He admitted he had no idea what he was doing when their lives depended on him doing the right thing and not screwing up. He wasn't too proud to admit to pain or fear, even though he had never in his life given in to the power of either.

"Since we're stopped here anyway," Jack said, turning to Aniyuv, "You mind filling us in?"

"Belith will only be so patient," Aniyuv said, "And then he will simply take what he wants."

"Could you be a little more vague, please?" Jack asked.

"I do not want my people harmed," Aniyuv said, "But the one thing I cannot control is the Enforcers inside the House. If they were absent, Community Director Whilbarr or Belith himself would notice immediately. I want as little bloodshed as possible, but we must enter the House to get Quinn."

"The House?" Jack inquired, "As in... house of representatives?"

"The House of Belith is where the citizens of Kiri go to worship their lord and master. Or where they used to, before we developed an official policy of non-religion. But when Belith is present, he resides in the House."

"Fascinating," Jack muttered.

"The time to strike is during interrogation, because Belith sends the guards away so they do not hear what prisoners have to say. There was a time I would not have questioned it, but now I understand that Belith wishes his true self to remain unknown to us," Aniyuv said, "Quinn explained to me that he uses his limited naquadah resources during interrogation, and is worn afterwords. This explains why the guard is always doubled at that time. He is most vulnerable then."

"Hand device?" Carter guessed.

"He has such," Aniyuv nodded, "And has used it liberally on your friend."

Jack winced, but said nothing to that.

"What kind of condition is Jonas in?" Jack asked, "Is he gonna be able to move on his own or will we have to carry him?"

"When I left him he was coherent," Aniyuv replied, "But injured. He would not get far under his own power. I cannot speak to his condition now."

"So what kind of plan do you have, anyway?" Jack asked, "Go in guns ablazin'? That's a good way to get yourself shot and killed."

"That is not my intention. If all goes as planned, we will drive into the garage part of the House. I will leave all but one or two of you there. I may need assistance to get Quinn from the throne room to the garage in a timely fashion. Therefore, one or two of you will wait in a room close to the throne room while I go to retrieve him. It will take a few minutes for the guards to return to their stations and be doubled. In that time, we will make it back to the garage and drive out. If all goes well, you should be back on your home world before anyone knows what has occurred."

"Leaving you holding the bag," Jack pointed out, "You realize that you'll be caught. Belith's got to have security cameras in his own House, don't ya think?"

"We developed a bit of a glitch in our security system this morning," Aniyuv said with a wry grin, "I sent in a request that the equipment be repaired or replaced, but the Security and Enforcement Council has not finished their deliberations, much less passed the paperwork to the Engineering Council."

"God bless bureaucracy," Carter remarked.

"Indeed," Teal'c chimed in.

"Let's not sing anyone's praises until we're out, okay?" Jack suggested.

"Sorry, sir," Carter said, and Teal'c dipped his head slightly.

"Okay, that's it," Aniyuv said, tying down the final corner of the tarp, "It's time to go."

"You heard the man, kids. Let's load up," Jack said.

SG-15 got in first, Lauder, Reiner and Kofield, Carter and Teal'c followed. Jack was the last to squeeze in. He barely fit in the back with everyone else.

"Remember to stay quiet back there," Aniyuv advised, "The soldiers guarding the broken wall side of Kiri may be lazy, but they are most assuredly not deaf."

In silence, the SG teams nodded. Aniyuv returned the nod, and started the engine.

* * *

Belith had been waiting for a long, long time to get off Guf'yn. The worst kind of hell for Goa'uld was not pain, not torture or even death, but a lack of power, an absence of control. When Ba'al and Belith had their falling out, it had been on Ba'al's terms. What Belith had intended at the time was no longer of any consequence. What had happened to him since was what mattered.

Ba'al didn't even have the decency to simply kill Belith and be done with it. Instead, Ba'al left Belith on this accursed, naquadah depleted rock with a handful of Jaffa and no means of leaving the planet. Belith had rallied the people of Guf'yn in a revolt to one of Ba'al's worlds, but Ba'al had been waiting. Belith had lost all of his remaining Jaffa, and most of the worshipers who'd come as well.

Gradually, over the years, Belith had been forced to strip his once magnificent temples of their naquadah, one by one, in order to keep the sarcophagus that kept him alive running. Now, after so many years he was almost out of naquadah, and time.

The worst of it was that Belith's female host had been too badly damaged to revive, so he had been obligated to move to the nearest available one. In the chaos that followed in the wake of his defeat, while he scrambled to survive and to try and find a way off this planet, Belith had almost forgotten about his subjects. Because of his unnaturally long lifespan, Belith perceived time very differently than a human, whose span was but a hundred years or less, only the space of a breath for Belith. His subjects were changed before he knew it. They were human at their core, but the planet had changed them, and Belith could only take on human hosts.

Yes, he could take over Jonas Quinn, but he did not wish it. A Goa'uld couldn't simply hop from one host to another without it taking some toll on them, particularly if the host was strong-willed and resistant as Jonas Quinn was. And Belith didn't want yet another male host. He was sick of them.

But he was more sick of being on this planet, and Jonas Quinn was not giving him the answers he wanted. The torture via the kara kesh put a drain on Belith. He had so little naquadah that the amount which had to be spared for the function of the device was no mere trifle as it normally would be.

Unfortunately, many other forms of torture would potentially leave the body too ravaged to repair, especially without the sarcophagus working at its full capacity. The last thing Belith wanted was to be trapped in a body he could not heal or control. But it was beginning to look like that was what it would take to win this contest of wills. At this point, Belith knew that Jonas Quinn wouldn't talk.

However, torture would weaken him, make him easier to master, so long as Belith didn't overdo it and damage him irreparably. It was a fine line, and Belith was an expert at walking it.

What irked him was that the human seemed to know what he was doing, and would not be goaded into expending more energy, either physical or mental, than absolutely necessary. Without sheer firepower to back him up, Belith had needed to rely on his own cleverness. He had learned to read his people well, to know how far he could push them before they would rebel. He could not risk crossing that line, even once, or they would turn on him like rabid animals and kill him.

When he looked at the human, he saw past the agony and the terror and the exhaustion, and saw a fire burning. The human still found the energy for anger somehow, still had within him the capacity for rebellion. A calculating mind lay beneath the evident panic, and Belith knew the human was attempting to play him. The human was young though, Belith had thousands of years of experience on him.

The thing that really bothered him was that the look wasn't fading. The rest of the man was, his body was breaking, the weakness practically radiated off of him. But the look wasn't vanishing from his eyes. And, though he would not admit it to himself, that look had Belith scared.

He knew he could dominate even a strong-willed human. He'd done it before... a long time ago. But what bothered him was the ability of strong hosts to fight back. They could slow him down, and maybe even get him to say or not say things, alter his tone and expression as they battled his will. In his current position, the slightest, most momentary slip would get him killed.

But if he didn't break this man, then his chance of getting off the planet and taking his revenge on Ba'al would never come. This was his shot at freedom, at vengeance, at the recapturing of his old power. Belith dearly missed the life of a god, and he was willing to do anything to get it back.

 _Anything_.

Feeling the drain on himself, Belith pulled back the kara kesh. The moment he was released, the human collapsed to the floor and lay gasping, his body twitching as his nervous system tested itself out as though surprised to still be intact. The kara kesh was meant for just this sort of torture, but Belith knew the human body could only hold out for so long before it gave out. The advantage most Goa'uld had was that they could put someone in a sarcophagus to heal if they didn't happen to be done with them.

Belith did not dare risk his precious naquadah powered sarcophagus on the likes of this human. From the rattling sound of his breathing, the human wasn't long for this world now, and still Belith had learned nothing from him. However pleasurable it was to inflict suffering on one who had dared to question his power, the time for games was now over.

"Why do you hold out?" Belith asked, "What could you possibly hope to gain?"

The human continued to lie on the floor and shudder, and did not answer. More to test for any hidden resistance than because he wanted answers, Belith kicked the man in the side. Jonas rolled with the hit, flopping from his side and onto his back without a hint of fight in him.

"You are not so special," Belith persisted, "Who would risk their life to save you?"

Without moving or opening his eyes, Jonas answered Belith for the first time.

"No one," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "I'm not worth it."

The sound of defeat was distinct, and Belith recognized it when he heard it. Honest despair wasn't easy to come by, and Belith hadn't been able to inflict it on anyone for a long, long time.

"Then who is it that you defend so fiercely?" Belith asked, "If they would not come for you, then why endure such suffering on their behalf?"

Jonas opened his eyes, and in their blue depths was a world of pain. But when he spoke, his voice was surprisingly steady, if very mild in tone.

"Why not come and find out?" Jonas asked, his eyes bright with fever, but not without defiance, "Unless you're afraid. Come on, what am I gonna do? Spit on you?"

Belith didn't like the fire still in the human's eyes, but he knew that Jonas had a point. He could practically taste the physical weakness of the human. His brain having recently been slightly cooked by the kara kesh left him unable to move of his own accord, much less fight back. There would be no better time to take a new host than right now.

A symbiote was never more vulnerable than when they moved from one host to another. They had no natural defenses except possession. Despite surprising toughness for slimy snake-like creatures, a Goa'uld outside a host could not live long and could barely move. Under ordinary circumstances, a Goa'uld changing hosts would prefer to have an ally or trusted Jaffa standing by. They preferred to have their future host stunned or unconscious or otherwise restrained.

But Belith had no allies, and no Jaffa, and his impatience was getting the better of him. Besides, it was obviously impossible that the human could have the strength to do anything to fight back. He might as well know right off how strong-willed the human really was. It was easy to take over an unconscious body, but a Goa'uld could find themselves caught off-guard when their host awakened at some later time and fought back. Young or weak Goa'uld could even be effectively overcome, at least enough for their hosts to bring about their own demise. Belith had seen it before, and he wasn't about to be one of those Goa'ulds.

It would be a small matter to convince his subjects that he had found a new host. The power and knowledge of the Goa'uld traveled with the symbiote. He would be able to use the kara kesh, his eyes would glow and his voice would rumble like thunder. They would recognize him, and fear him, and he would even remain virtually unchanged from the way his people described him now.

The human was staring at him, challenging him, not fearing him, doubting his powers, threatening him by nonbelief. Waiting to see if Belith would back down, hoping to mock him for a coward.

Belith was afraid that the human had already begun to corrupt Aniyuv, who would in turn use his influence to change the minds of others. Belith was in no position to go to war with these people. His precarious position was about to be toppled if he did nothing. Silencing the voice of dissent was not enough. He needed to take it over, and bend it to his will. That would halt any attempt Aniyuv might make, and possibly even convert him back to Belith's side. Those who had strayed and returned to the fold always had the strongest loyalty thereafter.

"Come on," the human hissed through his teeth, goading Belith, "Come and find out how to build your new army. Show me the power of Belith, and make me your slave. If you _can_."


	24. Move

Jonas was terrified. To directly challenge a Goa'uld like this was suicidal and insane.

While obtaining his degree in Kelownan politics, Jonas had been subject to verbal abuse and public humiliation by a much respected professor. The man had ridiculed his questions and openly mocked his essays, reading and degrading them right in front of the whole class. When Jonas tried to explain it to the professor's superiors, they didn't seem to believe him. The professor was a veteran of the prestigious university, and they would not hear a word against him.

Jonas considered quitting, but then he would have to go home to his father a failure, and that he could not face. Caught between two awful choices, Jonas made the decision to go on the attack. That meant buckling down to his studies of psychology at the same time as he was working on his graduate thesis in politics. He also had to study the history of his professor, trying to discover what the game was, and what leverage he could find. Finally, he was ready.

The professor's main weakness was his own arrogance. He talked an aggressive game, but the so-called holes he kept poking in Jonas' theories didn't stand up to scrutiny. The next time the man went after Jonas, he was ready to fight back. The professor didn't give an inch, and even resorted to personal attacks. But by the end of it, Jonas had won his degree. What he learned then was that the professor was particularly impressed by him, and had realized he would soon be bored of the class if not directly challenged and forced to focus his efforts. It had been one of the most demoralizing experiences of Jonas' life, but it had also prepared him for what was to come.

The surest way to get an arrogant opponent to make a mistake was to belittle them. Their egos couldn't take it. And Jonas knew that there was nothing more arrogant in the world than a Goa'uld. All he had to do was sell the mockery, but not too hard. If he said too many things or pushed too much too fast, his opponent would realize it, and then refuse to play into his hands.

What Jonas feared was that he had waited too long.

Belith could not have maintained power all these years without the ability to read people, to gauge their strengths and weaknesses, to weigh their fears against their desires. Jonas knew he could not fool Belith into thinking he was mentally broken, but the arrogance of the Goa'uld just might make it possible to convince him that Jonas' body had given out, especially as that wasn't far from the truth.

Lying on his back, Jonas wasn't sure he could lift a finger in his own defense, much less do what it was he had to do. He watched through dulling vision as Belith crouched down near his head. The Goa'uld's gaze bore through the eyes of its host as it stared at Jonas. He felt his resolve beginning to crumble.

What had he done? If he hadn't provoked it, the Goa'uld might have left him alone. Maybe it would have let him be himself, just for a little longer. Every second of free will was suddenly the most precious thing he had ever experienced, and his little insults might have cost him minutes, hours or even days. The pain he had to endure was nothing in comparison with the kind of Hell that lay behind the eyes of Belith's host.

Jonas let out an involuntary whimper of fear when Belith's eyes flashed for the last time. The host crumpled, so long broken and twisted by the Goa'uld's will that there seemed to be truly nothing left. While the Goa'uld's claim that nothing of the host survived was patently untrue, a hundred lifetimes of being a prisoner in your own mind, looking out through your own eyes while atrocities were committed by your hands and death sentences made by your voice gradually destroyed the mind.

The Goa'uld slithered out from under the neck of its former host and crawled up onto the still heaving chest, a legless dragon with the fangs of a viper and hood of a cobra. It reared up, issuing a squealing hiss, preparing to make the jump to Jonas. It was now or never. Freedom or slavery. Life or death.

" _Move!"_ O'Neill's voice practically screamed in Jonas' head, _"Jonas, move now!"_

Pain shot through him as he twisted in obedience to the command. The smooth floor made it easy to turn. With his palms flat on the floor, Jonas shoved himself on his back away from the Goa'uld, at the same time rotating and tucking his good leg up. When the Goa'uld lunged for him, Jonas kicked out.

His boot connected with the thing's head and it screeched. It flew sideways, bounced off the floor with a wet thud and slid across the stone. Blinded with the jolting pain the action sent through him, Jonas nonetheless fought to right and get himself over there, to kill the Goa'uld while it was stunned.

But he made the critical error of landing on his damaged right knee when he rolled over and tried to get up. If the pain had been bad before, it was excruciating now. With a cry, he fell back onto his side, the edges of his vision turning black and spots flashing in front of his eyes.

Writhing on the floor, trying to regain control of his battered body, Jonas lay helpless as the Goa'uld slowly lifted its head, shook itself and began the slow, deliberate crawl in the direction of its victim.

Despite the fact that the only thing a symbiote could manage outside a host was an absurd wriggling, Jonas found it somehow more terrifying now the thing was exposed than it had been inside a host. The worst part was the squishing, slapping sounds its soggy body made on the stone as it moved and the high-pitched squeals it kept issuing like a bat trying to use echolocation.

Jonas knew he was in bad shape if he couldn't handle a Goa'uld at its most vulnerable, but it was all he could do to fend off the pain, deny it power over him, just enough to move. He'd almost lost consciousness a moment ago, he couldn't afford to do that again.

Lying on his stomach, looking for a way out, for a weapon to fight back with, a means of defense or escape, Jonas spotted the prone figure of the Goa'uld's former host. The concealed light sources of the throne room caught the silver edges of the kara kesh the host wore on their right hand. It didn't do him any good. Jonas himself could not use the kara kesh. But then his frazzled brain managed to recognize what it was seeing. Not the kara kesh, but something in a sheath just above the part of the arm where the kara kesh ended. A Goa'uld with limited naquadah would not use only the kara kesh. He would have a backup weapon, in case his main one failed to be sufficient to protect him.

Something not powered by naquadah, something easily concealed so that he would not appear weak.

Jonas awkwardly made his way over to the former host, keenly aware of the Goa'uld slinking up behind him. It was going to line up for another go at the back of his neck at any second. Jonas didn't have the wherewithal to go around the host, but clambered right over the body, reaching for the sheathed knife.

Just as his hand closed on the handle, he heard the Goa'uld squeal. Before he could turn, he felt it strike him. The razor fangs slashed the skin of his neck. Jonas screamed.

* * *

Jack was never fond of splitting up, but he understood the necessity. Two people following Aniyuv's lead were a lot more stealthy than even the best trained team of covert ops specialists. So Jack and Carter left the others in Aniyuv's vehicle and followed the Enforcer into the House of Belith.

Jack almost immediately noticed the Goa'uld aesthetic of the interior of the House. The smooth blue-black stone with its golden accent color was impossible not to recognize. There was a lack of quality to it that even Jack could see though. He said nothing about it because he was afraid of triggering an explanation of materials or architecture from Carter. He loved how smart she was and how much she knew about just about everything, even though he hardly ever understood anything she said, but now was not the time or the place.

Jack and Carter were cautious, and kept close to the walls and any cover they could find. Aniyuv walked ahead of them boldly. Unlike them, he was actually supposed to be here. Aniyuv led them up stairs and down hallways, and Jack found it harder and harder to sit on his naturally suspicious nature.

" _Trust me."_

How much of a fool was he for listening to a voice in a dream? In his time, Daniel had placed his faith in even more ridiculous things, determinedly forging friendly relations even with creatures that had originally intended to eat him. Jack didn't have that in him. He didn't like how far they were having to go from Teal'c and the others, he didn't like the maze this place had turned out to be. And he especially didn't like how utterly quiet it was, as if the guards had taken the day off.

Finally they came to a recessed door near the base of a wide staircase.

"You will have to wait here," Aniyuv told them, "There is nowhere closer to conceal yourselves. The throne room is up the stairs," before he said anything else, the silence was shattered by a scream.

"Jonas!" Carter exclaimed.

It was just reflex. Jack would later reflect that the smarter thing to do would have been to wait. He knew full well that screams of pain or fear were a part of torture. But cry of his too-long missing team mate tore through him, and he abandoned reason in favor of instinct, which was to come to the aid and defense of one of his own. Carter had the same response. Both of them ran up the stairs on autopilot, not thinking of the consequences, thinking only of their team mate, thinking only that they could not lose another, not so soon after Daniel. They didn't hear Aniyuv call to them, or notice him following them up the stairs. In that moment, they had eyes only for the doors of the throne room, ears only for sounds coming from behind those closed doors.

The stairs were steep, and there were a lot of them, but neither Jack nor Carter slacked their pace until they got to the top, at which point their advance was rudely thwarted by the doors themselves. They were forced to wait for Aniyuv to catch up and put in the correct code to open the doors.

The doors rumbled and chugged, moving aside with agonizing slowness. Jack and Carter positioned themselves out of view of the room on either side of the doors until they finished opening. Aniyuv simply stood back and waited. To Jack, it seemed like those doors took forever to open.

Jack's impatience and the fact that he'd heard no sound from inside the room since that single scream overcame his good sense, and he failed to check the room before he charged into it. He almost immediately regretted that, as something heavy landed on him from behind and secured a choke hold.

Staggering under the unexpected weight and abrupt lack of air coming in, Jack immediately let go of his P90, which he'd been holding at the ready. He reached up and tried to catch hold of the arm around his throat, to pull it away so he could get air. But his assailant's skin was slick with blood or sweat, and he couldn't get a good hold on them. Giving up on that, Jack reached for the hand at the back of his head that was holding the choke arm in place. Gray seeped into his vision and he did the only other thing that came to mind. He backed up, slamming back first into the wall as hard as he could.

The ploy worked. The hold loosened, and Jack was able to break the choke hold and throw his assailant over his shoulder and pin him to the floor. It was only then that he discovered that assailant was Jonas.

Fevered indigo eyes stared up at Jack without seeming to recognize him, and Jonas struggled under Jack's weight, clearly gripped and fueled by pure adrenaline soaked terror.

"Jonas, Jonas! Hey, take it easy!" Jack commanded, easily preventing Jonas' from freeing himself, but concerned that the man's frantic escape attempts might be injuring him further, "Jonas, quit it!"

Jack realized his harsh tone was only further panicking the Kelownan, but the recent squeezing of his throat had left him breathless and his throat felt raw. He couldn't manage any other tone.

It was then that Carter intervened. She had been unable to participate in helping Jack because it had happened too fast. Once Jack had Jonas down, she'd checked the room for threats. Satisfied it was clear, she slid to her knees near Jonas' head. She gently put a hand on his right shoulder, and her other beneath his head to try and help still him, or at the very least stop him from hurting himself trying to buck Jack off.

"Jonas, it's okay," Carter's voice was tight, she had never been very good at keeping her emotions in check when faced with the suffering of others, especially members of her team, "You're alright, you're alright. Calm down, you're alright."

For a long few seconds, it seemed like Jonas could not hear her through his terror. He kept struggling, his breath coming in wheezing gasps, refusing to accept that he hadn't the strength left to fight. Then, at last, he let out a soft whimper that might've been fear or pain, and stilled.

Still pinning Jonas to the floor with his weight, Jack felt the Kelownan's chest rise and fall rapidly, hitching with each intake of breath, hyperventilating. Jonas was shaking badly, and though he finally locked eyes with Jack and seemed to know his leader, that normally clear and forthright gaze was unfocused and hazy, and Jack realized it hadn't been only fear that kept Jonas from recognizing him and Carter, but the fact that he could barely see, and what he could see probably didn't make any sense to a mind suffering from fever. Jack could feel the dangerously excessive heat Jonas' body was generating.

But what bothered him was something he'd glimpsed when Jonas was still thrashing under him. Feeling confident that Jonas was going to be still for the moment, Jack freed up a hand and turned Jonas' head to the side, revealing the gash at the back of his neck. He heard Carter take a choking breath. They both knew what such a mark meant.

"Aw, Jonas," Jack sighed, briefly closing his eyes.

"You don't... need to worry, Colonel," Jack was surprised to hear Jonas speak, his strained voice barely even a shaky whisper, every word seeming an effort, "Belith... is dead."

Jonas turned his head towards the dais across the room. Jack followed his gaze, but at first he saw only the crumpled form of what he had to assume was Belith's former host. Jack started to shake his head, but then he noticed the blood on Jonas' arms, which was what had prevented Jack from getting a good grip on him. The blood didn't belong to Jonas, or any human. It was blue, Goa'uld blood.

Jack took a second look at the former host. Just beyond the human body was another, almost the same color as the floor. Jack would have missed it on the second look, had not a silver knife been stuck in it.

Slowly, half-afraid Jonas would sink into delusion and attempt to escape again, Jack got up. Jonas made no attempt to move, even once nobody was holding him down. Carter stayed where she was, cradling Jonas' head in her hands, but looking over her shoulder at the Goa'uld on the floor.

Jack cautiously edged his way up to it, P90 once more held at the ready. He didn't let himself fully believe it was dead until he was close enough to see the thing hadn't just been impaled, it had been slashed from one end to the other, then stabbed repeatedly, probably because Jonas had been too frenzied to know it was dead. Hearing boots on the stairs must have broken what was obviously a frantic and slightly crazed assault on the Goa'uld. Jonas had made his way across the room, leaned against the wall (evidenced by Goa'uld blood he'd left there) and waited.

Jack felt an odd flush of pride that Jonas had finally managed to absorb significant portions of the self-defense Jack and Teal'c had been trying to drill into his head. Even though Jack had managed to overpower him, it was more because Jonas was weak and hurting, not because his technique needed work. Through however much pain he'd been in at the time, Jonas had fought back and killed his adversary, and then set up a viable defense against incoming threats in the only way he could.

While he was over there, Jack checked the pulse of the former host. He couldn't find any. It wasn't uncommon for Goa'ulds to kill their hosts when they abandoned them.

By the time Jack finished examining the bodies, Carter had managed to get Jonas to sit up. She was fully supporting him, obviously he'd spent the last of his remaining strength on Jack, who had knocked the wind out of him and maybe even inadvertently cracked some of his ribs.

Pain and indescribable fatigue were etched in the lines of the Kelownan's face, every drawn breath seemed to take tremendous effort and appeared to hurt him, if the very, very soft whimpers that escaped from him despite his obvious struggle to suppress them were any indication.

Jack had only the vaguest idea about how badly Jonas might be hurt.

"You gonna be able to walk?" Jack asked Jonas.

Jonas shook his head slightly. Jack sighed, his mind working on the problem. He didn't want to just carry Jonas over his shoulders. For one, he might do more harm than good. For two, there were about a million flights of stairs between here and the garage. There was no way that he could make that carrying Jonas and trying to go unnoticed by the still unseen guards.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," Jonas sounded genuinely ashamed of himself, which startled Jack.

Jonas was staring at the floor when Jack looked at him. At first he thought Jonas was talking about his inability to carry himself out of here, but it was soon apparent that wasn't the case.

"I... should have known," Jonas said, his voice flat, "the second I heard her call it the Chappa'ai, I should've known... I screwed up... and people got hurt, and killed... and..." unable to find the breath to finish, he went suddenly quiet and hung his head.

"Jonas..." Carter began, but Jack cut her off.

He knelt down so that he was level with Jonas and said, "Jonas, look at me. Look at me."

At first, Jonas seemed to resist the command and avoided Jack's eyes. When he finally looked at the Colonel, there was an unbearable misery in his dark eyes, which was deeper than just the physical pain and illness that ravaged his body.

"This was not your fault," Jack said firmly, and Jonas almost immediately dropped his gaze, so he reiterated, "Jonas, look at me," he waited for Jonas to obey before continuing, "This was not your fault. None of it. You were the rookie in the field, and you did everything that was asked of you. You didn't deserve this. Okay? Jonas, what happened isn't on you. Do you understand that?"

Jonas nodded slightly, but averted his eyes as he did so. Jack decided he didn't have time to work through the tangled mess of Jonas' psyche to try and figure out just what logic path he'd been following to decide that he was to blame for what had happened.

"Good," Jack said, pretending he believed he'd gotten through, "Now, Carter and I are gonna help you, but you're gonna have to do some of the work to get yourself home. Can you do that?"

Jonas took a shaky breath, nodding slightly, "I can try."

"Good boy," Jack said.

Figuring out how to support Jonas' weight without hurting him proved to be something of a good trick. Normally, an injured person would be sandwiched between two other people. With his arms held around the back of their necks, his weight would be best distributed. But Jonas couldn't take the strain on his left shoulder, and their first attempt to move forward would have sent him back to the floor had Jack and Carter not been holding him up.

Carter was on Jonas' right, compensating for the injury to his right knee. Jack had to figure out how to adjust so he could help balance and take some of the weight without doing worse damage than whatever had already been done. Making it all the way to the door of the throne room was a feat in itself. Jack couldn't imagine how the hell they were going to make it down the stairs. Aniyuv simply moved ahead of them, keeping a lookout. He said that the guards would be coming any time now.

With his team supporting him, Jonas threw himself into the task with a will. Though Carter and Jack were carrying most of his weight, Jonas trembled with every step. He didn't complain, and trusted them not to let him fall, even though he was evidently dizzy and felt unstable. He focused single mindedly on each step on the stairs. His breathing had steadied somewhat when the panic subsided and the effects of the kara kesh began to wear off, but it became labored again by the time they were a half dozen steps down the stairs. Jonas just clenched his teeth and kept going. Jack and Carter were right with him.

Nonetheless, Jack knew precious minutes were ticking away. He sensed the growing urgency in Aniyuv's demeanor. The Enforcer had planned their escape, but timing was everything, and it was running out, even in spite of Jonas' best efforts.

"One down, only a dozen more to go," Jack said with forced brightness when they got to the base of the stairs, "We'll be home in time for the Simpsons."

Jonas let out a low moan that might have been one of despair, but he didn't show any other sign of giving up. Even though they had no time to waste, Jack realized that Jonas wouldn't make it another hundred feet without a break, so they stopped to let him try to catch his breath a little.

When he had, Jonas said, "If we run into trouble, you're going to have to leave me."

"Don't insult me, Jonas," Jack admonished.

"I'm serious," Jonas said, "I'm not worth it."

"Hey!" Jack snapped, "I'm in charge here. I decide if you're worth it or not. You got that?"

He barely heard Jonas' mumbled reply of, "Yes sir."

"Good. Now let's go. One step at a time. Let's go."

Jonas muttered something Jack didn't quite catch, so he asked the Kelownan to repeat it.

"I said 'Whatever you do, don't stop. Move and keep on moving'."

Jack wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, and the faint smile Jonas offered him didn't exactly clear it up. He hoped the man wasn't losing his grip on reality, because that was the last thing they needed.

"Sure, Jonas," Jack said reassuringly, "Just hang in there. We're almost home."


	25. Quiet

If the ride out to the House of Belith had been miserable, the ride back was pure Hell.

In the end, determination alone hadn't been enough to get Jonas through. Col. O'Neill realized Jonas wasn't going to make it, and sent Aniyuv to go and get Teal'c. The Jaffa's great strength would allow him to carry Jonas much more easily and rapidly than any of the rest of them. It was a good thing O'Neill sent Aniyuv when he did. Jonas made it to the bottom of his second staircase when he collapsed.

Teal'c arrived mere moments later. With tenderness surprising for such a powerful warrior, Teal'c lifted Jonas. Matter-of-factly and without hesitation he turned and made his way back to the garage, Col. O'Neill and Sam scrambling to keep up with him and wondering why they hadn't thought of it earlier.

A level above the garage, they ran into a pair of Enforcers. The sight of Aniyuv made the two men hesitate just long enough for O'Neill to swipe Teal'c's zat and shoot both of them with it. Rather than give it back, Jack elected to keep it until Teal'c put down his burden and was able to wield it himself.

"They're just stunned," O'Neill assured Aniyuv when the Enforcer paused.

"When they awaken, they will report my treachery," Aniyuv said.

"Hopefully we'll be out of town by then."

"But will you be through the Chappa'ai by then?" Aniyuv asked, "If not, they will contact those assigned to guard the Chappa'ai by radio. I trained many of these men myself, they will know at once where we are trying to go."

O'Neill paused thoughtfully. It was going to be a long drive back to the Stargate, possibly longer than the effects of the zat. He looked at Sam, but she just stared back. She knew there were a lot of ways of silencing them without killing them, but for the moment she couldn't think of what to do. Jonas, however, could. Barely clinging to consciousness, he nonetheless heard and understood the problem.

"The cell," he said quietly, so quietly that the Colonel had to ask Teal'c what Jonas had said.

"The cell level is one above us," Aniyuv supplied.

O'Neill nodded decisively, understanding at once that, if they were locked up, the men couldn't report in. Maybe other Enforcers would find them before long, but any delay at all would help.

He turned to Sam, "You and Teal'c keep going for the garage. Aniyuv and I will handle these two."

Sam nodded and O'Neill handed her the zat.

"You may need it more than we will," He told her.

Sam hesitated a moment while O'Neill and Aniyuv picked up one of the unconscious Enforcers between them. But then she saw Teal'c was continuing on and she hurried to catch up with him.

The rest of the journey to the vehicle in the garage was uneventful. Even though O'Neill and Aniyuv hadn't caught up with them, Sam went ahead and decided to get Jonas situated in the back of the vehicle. It was going to be pretty cramped with everyone in there, especially since they'd need to be careful not to squish Jonas. SG-7 and SG-15 didn't make any complaint as Sam tried to figure out how to fit everyone in the back. While she was shuffling bodies around, trying to make them fit, Teal'c stood by impassively. Sam vaguely noticed he was still holding Jonas, who looked very small and very fragile right about now. Jonas didn't appear to have the energy to be aware of what was going on anymore, and simply concentrated on continuing to breathe.

Sam, who regularly played the secondary role of field medic for SG-1, didn't like the fact that Jonas seemed to be having increasing difficulty breathing. But there was nothing she could do now.

Once she was satisfied with the personnel arrangement, Sam climbed into the back of the vehicle.

"Okay, Teal'c," she instructed, "Pass him to me. Easy now."

Jonas made no move to assist. At the Colonel's behest, Jonas had spent everything he had left trying to get down the stairs. He was very clearly completely done in now. Sam nestled him against her so that when the vehicle inevitably jolted she might be able to shield him from the impact somewhat.

Teal'c stood outside the vehicle watchfully until O'Neill and Aniyuv arrived. Only after Aniyuv got in front and O'Neill climbed in the back did Teal'c finally deign to enter the vehicle. Remembering the zat, Sam passed it to the Colonel, who handed it off to Teal'c.

When Aniyuv started the vehicle engine, Sam felt Jonas cringe against her and heard him make thin sound of pain. She knew that the worst was yet to come. She bit her lip, knowing this was going to be really hard to take.

"Easy, Jonas," she said softly, "Stay with us."

She looked up at Jack, and it was obvious he was thinking of the same thing she was. The road near the soldiers guarding the broken wall of Kiri was rough with debris from the explosions that had taken out the wall itself. If backing out of the garage was enough to hurt Jonas, Sam wasn't sure he would be able to be quiet when the time came.

* * *

Jack was concerned about the amount of noise that Jonas might involuntarily make if they hit a pothole, but he was more worried about what he hadn't seen. Carter had conducted a cursory examination before she started moving Jonas, even though it was obvious that there wasn't a lot of choice in the matter. The fact was, Jonas had to be moved, and fast.

They knew Jonas had a head injury, some manner of pain in his shoulder and what Jack guessed was a broken kneecap. But the damage a kara kesh did was beneath the surface. Feeling Jonas reacting to pain as they moved down the stairs had told Jack there was damage they hadn't seen. He couldn't help but flashback to Daniel sitting on the edge of a bed in the infirmary, calmly detailing his own medical condition and telling Jack in his gentle way that he was about to die, even though he outwardly appeared to be uninjured. The damage had been done inside.

Jack didn't know much about a lot of things, least of all medicine. But he did know that moving someone with internal injuries could potentially kill them, and they had hours to go before they'd be back at the Stargate. They had no choice, Jack knew that, but the idea that they might be killing Jonas just to get him back to the SGC was a heavy weight on his mind.

Jack wasn't sure which was the worse, the thought of losing Jonas or knowing what it would do to his team, most especially Carter. Of them all, Jack thought she had been the most hurt by the loss of Daniel. She was a very caring person, even in spite of herself. Her attempts to rebuff Jonas' overtures of friendship were all in vain. She just couldn't go around kicking puppies. She'd let herself care about Jonas, and Jack had seen that what was happening to him was tearing her up inside.

When Aniyuv slowed down, Jack knew they were coming to the checkpoint.

"Jonas," Jack said, "Jonas, I need you to listen to me."

It took longer than Jack liked for Jonas to open his eyes and slowly focus them. It took him a disturbingly long time to find where Jack was in the vehicle, even though the compartment was somewhat shadowy. But once he'd found Jack, his gaze was steady, patient, waiting for an order.

"The road's gonna get rougher from here on out," Jack said, "But you're gonna have to be quiet, because we're sneakin' ya across the border. Think you can manage that?"

Jonas nodded very slightly, and closed his eyes again.

The first major bump came a split second later. Aniyuv hadn't slowed down quite enough, and Jack was pitched halfway out of his seat. He collided with Major Kofield on the other side and they used each other to get back to where they'd started. The impact elicited a grunt from Jack, but Jonas successfully made no sound at all. Jack glanced towards the forward part of the vehicle, where Carter was still holding onto Jonas. She had gripped him tight when the vehicle jolted, keeping him as still as possible. Even so, Jonas' face had gone dead white, and he had clenched his teeth so hard the muscles in his jaw stood out. Aniyuv slowed the vehicle still further.

 _How the hell is he going to survive over two hours of this?_ Jack asked himself.

Somehow, they made it through the checkpoint without raising any eyebrows. Jack knew they were a long way from being out of the woods though. Ahead lay endless miles of punishing, unkempt road. Aniyuv couldn't risk slowing down too much, or they would miss their window with the guard change. The man seemed to be reasonably intelligent, but Jack would've bet money that he'd never tried to engineer anything like a jailbreak. He hadn't left much margin for error.

While they were transporting the stunned security Enforcers to the cell, Aniyuv had said they were behind the schedule he'd planned for. Jack hadn't bothered to tell Carter when they got back to the vehicle, but Aniyuv was going to have to make up for lost time over that torturous road.

The good news was that they shouldn't run into any Enforcers or indeed anyone out on that road. Jonas could scream if he needed to, and they should still be okay. If any of this could be considered okay.

Jack winced in sympathy with every lurch and jounce of the vehicle, but Jonas didn't make a sound. Really, Jack felt Jonas would be better off unconscious, but he clung to awareness with the tenaciousness of a bull terrier. Carter did her best to take the brunt of the shock when the road did its thing to the vehicle, but it was obvious she couldn't take enough of it.

 _He should never have been here,_ Jack found himself thinking, _I should never have sent him here._

It struck him as odd now that he thought about it. He spent so much time comparing Jonas to Daniel, but this place wouldn't have been of much interest to Daniel, and Jack would never have even considered trying to make him go. Daniel was not one of Jack's soldiers to be commanded. In fact, despite having tried on various occasions, Jack had finally concluded that he could not control Daniel at all. It wouldn't even have occurred to him to make Daniel go on a mission. He might've asked, if the circumstances warranted it, but he couldn't _make_ Daniel do anything he didn't already want to do.

Had Jack tried to force Daniel to go when the man didn't want to, Daniel would have argued vehemently, made his feelings known. Daniel was very open about such things, disinclined to keep his opinions and desires to himself. Jonas had barely given any indication that he even had desires or opinions. He just shut up and did whatever Jack told him, just as if he was a soldier.

Up to now, Jack had always taken that to mean he didn't have any reservations. Daniel would never have failed to vocalize if he was unhappy or discontent with how things were going. In fact, Jack had come to rely on Daniel's ferocity to cut through all the bullshit. When describing things which interested him, Daniel had a tendency to ramble. But when defending his beliefs, he cut straight to the point. On one of several occasions when Daniel was believed dead, Jack had described him as SG-1's voice, its heart, and its conscience. That conscience had now been silenced.

But there had been a final message which Jack had missed until now. When he was railing against the way the Kelownans had treated Daniel, and focusing on Jonas in particular, Jack had been brought up short by Daniel himself. In his calm and understanding way, he'd observed that Jonas was in a tough position. Jack had dismissed that in his anger, but Daniel -as usual- was right. Jonas had been in a difficult position, but he'd done the best he could, thereby placing himself in a truly impossible one.

Daniel had proven himself to the SGC, over and over. Even had they wanted to fire him, the whole place would have gone up in smoke inside of a week without him. Daniel made the SGC what it was, though officially he held little to no position of authority. Even if they got rid of him, Daniel still had a home to fall back on. He came from Earth, and was given freedom upon it. If Jonas displeased the wrong people or did the wrong thing too many times, failed too often... he had nowhere to go. Whatever friends, family and allies he might have had on Kelowna, he'd given all of that up.

And he'd done all that because Jack had indirectly demanded it of him.

Unlike Daniel, Jonas didn't have anything to stand on to support himself if he tried to make an argument. He had no fall back position. He had nothing and no one. No wonder he never argued with Jack. No wonder he just shut up and did as he was told. No wonder he constantly seemed to be sucking up to anyone who'd stand still long enough. He was desperate for a sense of security, trying to belong in a world that would not have him. And Jack hadn't given it a second thought.

Jack had gone to bat for Teal'c, ensuring the Jaffa was not only welcome, but put on the team. Jack had fought hard for that. If not for him, Teal'c would probably have been locked up somewhere, possibly even experimented on. The SGC had come a long way, but the key was that someone had made sure Teal'c was accepted. Jonas had to fight every inch of the way alone, struggling to earn enough trust and respect to even ask to join any team, let alone SG-1. He'd never been truly accepted, certainly none of them had done much to show they cared one way or another what happened to him.

Jonas' words from earlier came back to haunt him.

" _I'm not worth it."_

How did someone as educated and formerly successful as Jonas get to have that opinion of themselves? How did someone who had the courage to give up his entire world in the name of what was right, and then manage to not only adjust to a new life on a new world but train himself to be invaluable to that world come to think that his life didn't matter, wasn't worth saving?

Jack sighed, running a hand wearily down his face. The truth was he knew the answer to the question. Jonas didn't believe he was worth anything because nobody treated him like he was. They wanted the knowledge he had to offer, and then they were done with him. What few friendships he made were convenient and fun for the other people involved, the moment he became a nuisance there was no evidence that anyone he'd come to know at the SGC would stick by him.

Daniel had been the biggest pain in the ass, but the fact that he was a perpetual irritant and inconvenience to Jack from day one was enough to prove the solidarity of their relationship. The two of them could barely sit in the same room without having a disagreement about something. They were massively annoying to each other, and continually got in the way of each other's beliefs and way of being. But at the end of the day, each would have died for the other and they both knew it. No matter how upset they got over something, at the end of a mission they were still friends. That bond had transcended their beliefs and opinions and likes and dislikes. There wasn't a thing in the world that could break the chain that linked them together, and they both knew it.

Over the years, Jack had bonded with Carter and Teal'c almost as closely, but Daniel had been there with him at the start. Whatever the surrounding circumstances, it had been Daniel who gave Jack a reason on that first mission. A reason to choose life instead of death, when the whole damned world seemed just too dark to see and that stupid tunnel not only didn't have a light at the end, it was a one way road with a dead end. They'd never talked about it, but they'd both known that Jack owed Daniel more than his life. He owed him everything.

Daniel was gone now, beyond Jack's ability to help. So it was time he did the next best thing. It was time to pay it forward. It was time for Jonas to know there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and that his team would never leave him behind. To them, if no one else, he was worth the trouble of saving.

It was time he learned that. If he lived long enough.


	26. Need to Argue

It was a long, anxious wait.

Aniyuv's timing had been just about perfect. They had hit the gap in the guard shift change without incident. Aniyuv had remained behind, of course. Carter had invited him to come with them, fearing his people would kill him when they found out what he'd done, but he had assured her that he would be alright, and that he had a plan in place. Carter seemed doubtful, but Jack believed him.

Besides, at that point he'd been mostly concerned with Jonas, who had lost consciousness just a few minutes before they reached the Stargate. Carter had dialed up Earth, Jack had sent their GDO code and Teal'c had carried Jonas through to the other side and into the waiting arms of Dr. Fraser and her medical team. The medical team had immediately departed the 'Gate room, and Jack along with the rest of SG-1, SG-7 and SG-15 had gone for a debriefing with General Hammond.

After that, Jack wasn't surprised to discover that Jonas had been taken in to surgery. It wasn't Jack's usual habit to loiter around the infirmary, so he went to get some lunch from the commissary. What he discovered was that it was later than he'd thought, so he had dinner instead. He ate alone, quietly, and found that for once he just wasn't particularly hungry. He ate anyway, long experience had instilled the behavior of eating when food was available because you never knew where your next meal might come from. At any moment, a crisis could arise and Jack knew he might not have the opportunity eat again for a long time.

Jack remembered all the times Daniel had forgotten to eat or sleep when he was working on something, and Jack or Carter had dragged him off to the commissary against his will. He remembered the team all sitting around the table eating, Daniel usually explaining at length his opinion on something while Jack pretended to listen. Daniel was always the most passionate person at the table, vibrantly alive and emphatic in his statements, lengthy in his explanations and eager for discussion.

Though they were all close with each other, team meals had become much quieter without him. It just wasn't as much fun to make wisecracks about what Carter had to say, and she was much less animated most of the time. Jack just didn't enjoy making a joke out of her brilliance like he did Daniel's. Jack vaguely realized he'd never sat down to a meal with Jonas. Not once.

By the time Jack finished playing with his dinner and went back to the infirmary, Jonas was out of surgery. Dr. Fraser's expert nursing staff was getting the injured Kelownan settled. Jack stayed near the door so he was out of their way, but he didn't leave.

Jonas looked small in the bed, pale and younger than ever. He looked vulnerable and fragile lying there with an IV stuck in his arm. The drugs had taken the tension from his face, but somehow he just didn't look quite peaceful, probably because his body was still trying to fight off an infection induced fever.

"Colonel," Dr. Janet Fraser acknowledged his presence, signaling she had a minute to talk.

"How's he doin', doc?" Jack asked quietly.

"He's pretty beat up, Colonel," Fraser told him, "Those people really put him through Hell."

"Is he gonna be okay?" Jack inquired.

"Physically, I'd say his chances of a full recovery are good. He took some time responding to the antibiotics, but he's doing alright now," she briefly averted her eyes to look at her patient.

"But?" Jack pressed.

Fraser looked back at him, "Well, unfortunately we won't know the extent of the damage to his brain until he wakes up," she smiled wanly, "You've all survived the Goa'uld hand device with no lasting effects, but the fact is that Jonas is physiologically different from you and me. Not much, but maybe enough. There's also the blunt force trauma to his skull to consider."

"Mind if I hang around?" Jack asked.

Fraser raised an eyebrow. She knew well the team's aversion to the infirmary. They would come in regularly to check on a downed team mate, but none of them liked to stay. The only time they stood vigil was when their team mate's life was hanging by a thread. Jonas was nowhere near that badly off.

"Colonel, he probably won't regain consciousness for another few hours yet," Fraser warned, "Even when he does, I wouldn't expect him to be able to stay awake for long. He's exhausted."

"That's okay," Jack said, "I haven't got anything better to do right now."

Dr. Fraser shrugged, gestured her permission and then went about her rounds.

Jack found a chair, pulled it up and sat in it backwards, straddling it and then resting his forearms on the back of it. He settled in to wait. Waiting had never been his strong suit, but he could do it when he had to. The trouble with waiting was that it gave him time to think, to remember, to regret, and he'd already had as much of that as he could stand for one day.

Marshal had been released from the infirmary while they were on Guf'yn, and the place was practically empty except for the medical staff. Once they finished settling Jonas in, they went off to do whatever it was doctors and nurses did between patient checks. The lights were low, the place was quiet now. The SGC always felt bigger at night, like all those open spaces started closing in on the few people who stayed after normal business hours. It was at night in the SGC that Jack felt most the enormity of what it was that they did here, when he realized that nothing he'd ever done in his life before now had ever been as huge as what he now did almost every day with the rest of SG-1.

Their job wasn't about border disputes or political maneuvering. It wasn't a conflict between this country or that one. They weren't out there hunting for criminals or even mere terrorists. The job they did, while mostly entailing exploration, investigation, research and meeting new cultures, was fate of the world stuff. More than the world, the whole damned galaxy. It was the greatest job in the universe, but the stakes were always high, the risks great, the consequences for mistakes dire.

It was a privilege to be here, but also an enormous weight of responsibility for a person to take on. It was a burden no one man could carry alone. But it was also a duty that every individual person involved had to perform. Each of them made a difference, sometimes all the difference in the world.

Jonas had never been a victim of Guf'yn. Whatever had happened to him there, in the end he had fought like a true member of SG-1, and he had killed a Goa'uld all on his own. He couldn't have gotten there alone, and he'd never have made it back home if his team hadn't come for him. But in that moment, in that room, alone with Belith, Jonas had made good on his promise. He had been -if only in that instant- everything that Jack had hoped he was capable of becoming. He'd done what it took, consequences to himself be damned. He had understood the threat posed by Belith, had seen his opportunity to eliminate that threat, and had done so. Whether or not he should have been there in the first place didn't really matter at this point. What mattered was the choice he'd made. He had erased himself from the equation, and gotten the job done. He'd seen the face of evil and spit in it, denying fear its power.

No one could have asked anything more of him than that.

* * *

Jack didn't realize he'd dozed off sitting in the chair until he heard the distinctive click of Dr. Fraser's heels on concrete when she came by to check on Jonas. Jack didn't say anything, just raised his head from where it had been resting on his arms and looked at her questioningly.

"The anesthesia has worn off," Fraser whispered, "He's sleeping now."

Jack nodded slightly, pretending that meant more to him than it did. Despite having undergone more than one surgery in his life, Jack had somehow managed to miss almost all of the relevant specifics about medicine. It was as foreign to him as the technobabble that came out of Carter's mouth on an almost daily basis. He understood it only a little better than he'd understood Daniel when the man occasionally lapsed into another language when babbling about history.

What he did know for sure was that some of what was in that IV had to be painkillers. Part of how he knew was that he knew what post-op felt like when your painkillers got delayed. You wouldn't be asleep. He knew also because Jonas' face was still fairly relaxed, though not quite as slack as it had been when he'd been in drug-induced unconsciousness. Somehow, there was just a difference between real sleep and the drugged up kind. You could just see it.

"You really should go home, Colonel," Fraser said, laying a hand gently on Jack's shoulder, "I wouldn't expect him to wake up before tomorrow morning at the earliest."

"Nah, I'm good," Jack assured her.

Fraser looked like she might press her doctoring credentials at him, but then she pursed her lips thoughtfully. With a sigh, she shook her head and smiled, recognizing that Jack was going to be stubborn.

"Alright, Colonel. I'm sure he'll appreciate having the company."

Jack doubted that. He enjoyed keeping people off balance, because it kept them alert and thinking, and it was also just so darn fun to see confusion or frustration on people's faces. Some part of him knew that he was constantly challenging Jonas, trying to find ways to push the Kelownan's buttons, not because he disliked the man so much but because he missed fighting with Daniel. Jack knew he intimidated Jonas, and usually that amused him. Not today.

A few minutes after Dr. Fraser left, Jonas began to become upset. Jack noticed when Jonas' brow furrowed. Jonas began to shake his head and tense up, and fresh sweat broke out on his forehead. Despite his obvious distress, he didn't utter so much as a sound. Jack realized he hadn't heard a thing from Jonas since the checkpoint in Kiri when he'd told the Kelownan to be quiet.

Realizing Jonas was becoming more agitated and that he might hurt himself, Jack got up from his chair and laid a hand across the Kelownan's chest.

"Easy, Jonas," Jack said softly, "I've got you. You're safe now, kid. You're home."

Without actually waking, Jonas responded. He relaxed almost immediately, and his breathing eased. Once certain Jonas was settling again, Jack returned to sitting on the chair. The sound of Jonas' regular, almost easy breathing was soothing after having heard him struggle to get air in around the pain the whole ride to the Stargate. It wasn't long before Jack fell asleep again.

* * *

Jack had sort of dozed off again, but he was roused by the sense that someone was watching him. He found that Jonas was awake and observing him with a look of concern on his face.

"'bout time you woke up," Jack said, trying to make light of his presence, "I was beginning to think I was going to have to try deciphering Daniel's notes for myself."

Jonas might not have felt very secure in his position, but even he knew that the chances of Jack trying to understand even a fraction of the notes and theories Daniel had written over the last six years were about as good as him learning to breathe underwater. In an infinite universe, anything was possible, but just because it was possible didn't make it likely. Jonas didn't so much as flinch.

But he did apologize.

"Sorry," he barely had a voice to speak with, but Jack managed to hear him, "I guess I was tired."

"Carter and T were worried about you too," Jack said, feeling awkward and uncomfortable being the only one in the room, "But Carter's workin' on a few adjustments for the new 302 design. Very technical. And Teal'c, he's... busy."

Jonas looked slightly uncertain as to whether Jack was pulling his leg or not, but he responded genuinely, "I didn't mean for anyone to worry. I'm sorry."

"Will you stop that?" Jack snapped, a little more harshly than he intended.

Jonas flinched and looked at Jack uneasily, "Stop what?"

"Apologizing all the time," Jack said, "especially for things that are not your fault."

"I'm-" it was just reflex, but Jack cut him off.

"I swear, if you say you're sorry one more time, so help me I'll slap you."

Jonas closed his mouth, and stared at Jack out of wide, dark eyes. He looked profoundly worried now. Jack remembered that he wasn't here to give Jonas a hard time, and he sighed.

"Look, what happened on Guf'yn wasn't your fault. Hell, you shouldn't even have been there."

Jonas now looked genuinely hurt, and Jack didn't at first grasp why.

"Colonel, I know I should have handled the situation better than I did, but-"

"Oh shut up," Jack said and Jonas obeyed, "See, that's exactly your problem."

Jonas had played the good soldier for SG-1. He had done everything Jack ever asked of him, never with the slightest bit of hesitation. And that, Jack realized, had always been exactly the problem.

Confusion clouded the young Kelownan's features, but he said nothing.

"What I meant," Jack said after a moment's thought, "Is that you never wanted to be there. Did you?"

"You assigned me to the mission. What I wanted doesn't matter."

"That's where you're wrong," Jack said, "Dead wrong. Look, Jonas, I'll let you in on a little secret: Danny and I disagreed on.. oh, just about everything. Hell, we couldn't even agree on whether chunky or smooth peanut butter is better. But no matter how crazy he drove me, he had a different perspective and the courage it took to defend what he believed in. As his replacement on this team, it is practically your _job_ to argue with me."

Jonas was silent for a long moment, then finally with his eyes averted, he quietly said, "I'm not Dr. Jackson."

"I know that," Jack responded, "I never had to tell him to stand up for himself."

"Colonel, I'm-"

"Ah!" Jack cut him off, raising a hand, "Don't. Just... don't."

Jonas fell silent. Jack sighed again.

"Look, just because you say something, it doesn't mean I have to agree with you. But even if I ignore it, it's still your job to get it said. Understand?"

Jonas started to nod, then thought better of it.

"No. Not really," he admitted, "My whole life, it's been my job to be agreeable. To do what I'm asked. If I ever had any ideas of my own, I had to sort of... guide my superiors into thinking they thought of it first. I'm not sure I know how to do what you're asking," at least he didn't finish with an apology.

"You don't know how to stand up for yourself?" Jack asked.

"I...," he cut himself off before Jack couldn't, "No... I guess I don't."

He looked so abashed that Jack's heart ached just looking at him. He couldn't think of anything more tragic than not knowing how to stand your ground, to speak with your own voice, to hold your own with the world against you. It was a requirement for this job. The fate of the universe hung in the balance, and they couldn't afford to compromise their beliefs out there. But he took a breath and reached into the pocket of his jacket. His hand found the ring there and he pulled it out.

"Look at me, Jonas," Jack said, and Jonas obeyed, "You say you don't know how," he tossed the ring, and Jonas caught it with one hand, "So just think of it as another skill, and learn. You're good at that."

He didn't wait for a response, he simply got up and left the room, leaving Jonas to stare after him.


	27. Epilogue

_**A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the story (and this epilogue), thanks for reading (and reviewing), goodnight everybody.**_

* * *

"That man is pure evil," Colonel O'Neill remarked acidly.

At the combined urging of Major Carter and Lieutenant Marshal, General Hammond had finally consented to let SG-1 return to Guf'yn to try and reopen trade negotiations. Both women were inexplicably obsessed with the technology that had been employed in the Guf'yn's studies of their sky.

O'Neill had been against the idea, citing the list of things that had already happened, mostly to Jonas. At first, Jonas had maintained his peace. But he'd taken O'Neill's instructions to heart. Not long after their conversation in the infirmary, O'Neill had brought Jonas a cardboard box full of notebooks.

"Daniel had a journal for every planet we ever visited," O'Neill had said, "These are his personal notes, not like the mission reports and theoretical work you've already ready. This here... this is who Daniel was. I haven't read it... much... but I think he'd want you to."

At first, Jonas was too scared to touch them. He felt like he was invading another man's privacy. But inevitably his curiosity overcame his politeness. What he'd discovered in those journals was a man very different from the one he'd met, and yet somehow just the same. Dr. Jackson had a lot of self doubt, a lot of private fears... but the faith he had in Colonel O'Neill had been profound, even from the first mission. The determination to succeed, to live, to do whatever was necessary was also there. This was the man Colonel O'Neill wanted Jonas to emulate. This was the team mate they'd lost.

And so, with no small amount of trepidation, Jonas had voiced his opinion. He wanted to go back to Guf'yn. He wanted to find out if Aniyuv was alright. He wanted to know what the Kirian, Jinaz and Riktari intended to do now that their lord and master had been felled. He thought it was important to know what happened next, and pointed out that those people might need help to stabilize. What he didn't say was that he wanted to know if three countries who'd been so violently opposed to each other could ever learn to get along. He wanted to know, because he wanted to see if there was any hope for Kelowna. Even if he could never go back, he loved his world, and he wanted to see it succeed.

As he'd warned Jonas might be the case, Colonel O'Neill did not change his tune. He even told Jonas he was being foolish to side with Carter on this one. But Jonas held his ground, and General Hammond in the end decided to let them go back to Guf'yn, provided they were cautious, stayed in close contact with a team who would remain at the Stargate, and that they would leave at the first sign of trouble.

Major Carter and Doctor Fraser had combined their talents to design sunglasses that filtered out the headache-inducing light of the planet. Come Hell or high water, Jonas was determined not to take the sunglasses off until they were back home. Those migraines were unbearable, though the worst actually came later, when his eyes began to readjust to 'normal' light.

Dr. Fraser had been reluctant to turn Jonas loose on active duty so soon, but she hadn't been able to come up with a compelling reason that he could not go. He was recovering faster than she'd predicted, and she knew him well enough to see the need for closure in his eyes when he begged to be released to active duty. He needed to know what they would find on Guf'yn, to see it firsthand.

What they had found was Community Director Whilbarr was still in charge, though he said he was going to overlook Kirian's history with Earth because of extenuating circumstances.

"The circumstances where you bombed your own city, or where you framed one of my people for murder?" O'Neill had inquired, with no small amount of hostility.

Whilbarr was a politician, and he didn't so much as twitch to acknowledge the accusation. What he did do was call a meeting so they could discuss potential future relations. The Council room, the metal chairs, the thermos of Percolate in the middle of the table. History repeating. Only this time Jonas was not alone, and this time he knew what to expect. This time, he knew not to drink the coffee.

They had contacted the Kirian before coming through the Stargate, and asked permission to come. Whilbarr had dispatched an Enforcer vehicle to fetch them. Perhaps because he knew there was only one Enforcer they would trust, Whilbarr sent Aniyuv, who had somehow kept his job. Aniyuv had explained that the political situation on Guf'yn had become very unstable. There had been a brief attempt by Whilbarr to cover up Belith's death, but Aniyuv had quickly seen to it that the attempt failed.

The Jinaz apparently refused to believe their god was either a snake or dead and had gone off to sulk. The Riktari attempted to seize power from Kiri, but Aniyuv and his Enforcers had been quick to stop the mercenaries sent to do the job, killing their leader and arresting the others.

But what had prompted O'Neill to call Whilbarr evil was what had happened today. After twelve uninterrupted hours of patient discussion and negotiation (most of which was done between Jonas and Whilbarr), the Community Director revealed that he'd never had any intention of establishing relations with Earth. He'd been quite eloquent, but it all boiled down to the fact that the political situation on Guf'yn was too shaky to risk an alliance with an outside world.

It was getting dark by then, and Whilbarr had dismissed the team that evening with some finality. They would be walking home.

"He's in a tough position," Jonas told O'Neill, "The Guf'yn people have served under Belith for thousands of years. Belith has controlled everything about their society. I'm sure he doesn't know what to do, but it's obvious that he's trying."

When Jonas had sufficiently recovered, he had delivered a report on his experiences on Guf'yn. In particular, he had talked about Belith. In historical texts, he had found references to Belith, a supposed demon who told of things past, present and future, and also had the power to transmute metals into gold. Belith was described as the chief secretary of Hell, who tempted men to blaspheme and murder.

"Ah yes," O'Neill had said, "The God of Paperwork and Red Tape."

"He was said to have _worn_ red," Jonas had ventured, "But I never saw that."

"No... Jonas, red tape means... you know what... look it up," O'Neill responded.

Now at the edge of the city, O'Neill turned and looked at Jonas incredulously, but Carter spoke first.

"Tough position?!" Carter exclaimed, "Whilbarr fed you to Belith like so much meat to a lion."

"He didn't have much of a choice," Jonas shrugged, "He was just doing what he thought he had to, what his god told him to."

"I do not want you defending that man," O'Neill said firmly, "Wilbur-

"Whilbarr, sir," Carter interrupted, but O'Neill brushed her off.

"-whatever his name is, can get bent as far as I care. I, for one, have seen enough of planet McGuffin. Now, unless anyone has any reasonable objections, we're going home."

Jonas and Carter exchanged looks, then both of them shrugged.

"Great!" O'Neill said, "It's a long way back, so let's get started."

* * *

Jonas gamely tried to keep up, but Jack soon looked back and noticed the Kelownan struggling to maintain the pace Jack had set. He slowed down to wait for Jonas to catch up.

"So, how's the knee?" Jack asked.

"I'm okay, Colonel," Jonas said, though the visible strain in his face and the fact he was intensely favoring his right leg said otherwise, "I won't slow things down."

"We're not in a hurry right now, Jonas," Jack told him, "'sides, Ol' Doc Fraser would kill me if I brought you back all busted up the day after she finished piecing you back together."

He called a halt, and then decided they should camp for the night. It was long past nightfall on Earth, in fact the sun might be starting to come up. Here on Kiri, both moons were still high.

None of them were really ready to sleep though, so they lay there looking up at the alien stars, each alone with their thoughts. Finally, Jack broke the silence.

"Hey, Jonas?"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"What kind of beer do you like?" Jack ignored the stifled giggling that came from Carter.

"Beer, sir?" Jonas raised himself up on his elbows so he could look over at Jack.

"Yeah, you know. Beer. Booze. Cold one. Moonshine..." Jack trailed off, trying to conceal his amusement at the blatant confusion on Jonas' face.

Carter wasn't so successful. Between giggles, she had mercy and said, "Alcoholic beverages, Jonas."

"Oh."

That was all he said. A moment of silence followed, during which Jonas lay back down.

"Jonas?" Jack inquired, "Uh... you _do_ drink, don't you?"

"Some people don't," Carter said quickly, "And that's okay."

"It's not that," Jonas replied with a sigh, "It's just... I... um... I haven't really..."

"Alcoholic beverages are not delivered to Stargate Command," Teal'c said, finishing Jonas' thought for him.

"Yeah. That."

"You were allowed off base that one time," Jack pointed out.

"We were kind of busy," Jonas said.

"You poor man," Jack said with feeling, "First thing when we get home, we're having a beer."

"Colonel, that's not necessary," Jonas protested, "I'm sure you've got a lot of other things that-"

"Hey!" Jack cut him off, "I get to decide what's important. And having a beer with your team is important," after a moment, he added, "I just hope you're not as cheap a date as Daniel was."

Carter laughed at that. Jonas only looked puzzled.

"Remember that time Teal'c had to carry Daniel out of the bar?" Carter asked, ignoring Jonas' confusion.

"Yeah," Jack answered, then turned to explain it to Jonas, "We'd been up thirty-six hours on a mission, and I got the brilliant idea that what we needed to end on was a drink. Daniel was a lightweight at the best of times. That night his usual limit would have been enough to put him under the table."

"He tried to propose to the woman who brought us our drinks."

"Get the boy a little inebriated, and he'd've proposed to a wall," Jack remarked.

"Fortunately, he told us what he was going to do, and then he fell out of his chair before she came back. Teal'c picked Daniel up, threw him over his shoulder and walked out," Carter said.

"How a man can hold up against Goa'uld hand devices, brain melting mind probes and that weird moonshine offshoot those kids on Abydos cooked up and yet you give him one beer and he turns into a babbling puddle of goo is beyond me," Jack went on, and then suddenly sobered, "Danny had fire and willfulness to him like nothing I've ever seen. But he was the gentlest drunk I ever knew."

"That's because he was the gentlest person any of us ever knew," Carter said quietly.

"True," Jack said.

They lapsed back into silence. Lying back on his bedroll, Jack gazed up at the stars. He'd always loved the stars, though he hadn't fully appreciated them until after that first mission with Daniel. Looking at them, it used to make him feel so small and it made his problems feel insignificant by comparison with the sheer size of the universe. But Daniel had seen something else in the sky.

He'd seen hope. In an infinite universe, anything was possible. Daniel had always been able to let himself fall into a place, a time, and forget about the past without worrying about the future. He was one of those rare individuals who could just... be.

When they'd first met, Jack had been locked up in a prison of his own making. He couldn't escape the past, mainly because he wasn't willing to even try. But Daniel... he'd lost his parents when he was just a kid. His grandfather hadn't wanted him, and the foster system had probably not been overly kind. He was brilliant enough to become an expert in his field, only to be abandoned by the people he'd worked so hard to please because his views were not their own, but he refused to abandon those ideas. He'd married a girl only to have her taken by a demon. He'd spent years chasing after her, only to watch her die with his own eyes.

Somehow, in all of that, he had managed to never lose himself. He had never let go his unshakable faith in the wonder and grandeur of the universe, the miracle that was life. He knew how rare and beautiful a thing existence was. But it wasn't enough for him to simply experience it, he wanted to share that feeling and awareness with everyone around him.

It wasn't the first time Jack had looked up at the stars and wondered where Daniel was now. But, somehow, he wasn't angry about it anymore. He missed Daniel terribly, but he realized now that Daniel had never really been his to hold onto. Daniel hadn't belonged to any of them. He'd allowed them to experience life through his eyes, if only for a time. He had walked with them, had become a part of who and what they were. But when the time had come, he had been alone.

As Jonas had done on Guf'yn, Daniel had refused to be a victim. Despite all that happened to him, all of the pain and suffering he had endured, Daniel chose his own path in the end. For all that though, Jack knew that Daniel hadn't abandoned them. He didn't know if he'd hallucinated Daniel or not, but the fact was a part of him was still here, still standing watch over those he'd loved. He'd left a light behind, one that Jack knew for sure would never fade or go out.

"Colonel?" the sound of Jonas' voice startled Jack; he'd thought the Kelownan had gone to sleep.

"Yes, Jonas?"

"Thanks. You know, for coming back for me. You didn't have to. I would've understood if you hadn't."

"Anytime, Jonas. Anytime."

* * *

" _You taught me the courage of stars/before you left.  
How light carries on endlessly/even after death.  
With shortness of breath/you explained the infinite.  
How rare and beautiful/it is to even exist._

 _I couldn't help but ask/for you to say it all again.  
I tried to write it down/but I could never find a pen.  
I'd give anything to hear/you say it one more time,  
That the universe was made/just to be seen by my eyes."_

- _ **Saturn** _**(Sleeping at Last)**


End file.
